159 research outputs found
3D Technology in Prosthetic Care: Enhancing Accessibility in Sierra Leone
No full textContains fulltext :
323964.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)Radboud University, 22 oktober 2025Promotores : Maal, T.J.J., Grobusch, M.P. Co-promotores : Brouwers, L., Leijendekkers, R.A.273 p
Treatment of imported severe malaria with artesunate instead of quinine - more evidence needed?
No full textTreatment of imported severe malaria with artesunate instead of quinine--more evidence needed? Cramer, J.P.; López-Vélez, R.; Burchard, G.D.; Grobusch, M.P.; de Vries, P.J
Automated malaria diagnosis using pigment detection
No full textSeveral new methods of malaria diagnosis have recently been developed, but these all rely on clinical suspicion and, consequently, an explicit clinical request. Although some methods lend themselves to automation (eg. PCR), no technique can yet be used for routine clinical automated screening. Detection of birefringent haemozoin has been used to diagnose malaria since the turn of the 20th century. A new generation of full blood count analysers, used widely in clinical laboratories, have the potential to detect haemozoin in white blood cells and probably erythrocytes. Thomas Hänscheid, Emilia Valadas and Martin Grobusch here describe this novel technique for malaria diagnosis and discuss its potential application
Assessing the Consequences of Stigma for Tuberculosis Patients in Urban Zambia
No full textAssessing the consequences of stigma for tuberculosis patients in urban zambia Cremers, A.L.; de Laat, M.M.; Kapata, N.; Gerrets, R.P.M.; Klipstein-Grobusch, K.; Grobusch, M.P. Published in: PLoS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0119861 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Cremers, A. L., de Laat, M. M., Kapata, N., Gerrets, R., Klipstein-Grobusch, K., & Grobusch, M. P. (2015). Assessing the consequences of stigma for tuberculosis patients in urban zambia. PLoS ONE, 10(3), [e0119861]. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119861 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract Background Stigma is one of the many factors hindering tuberculosis (TB) control by negatively affecting hospital delay and treatment compliance. In Zambia, the morbidity and mortality due to TB remains high, despite extended public health attempts to control the epidemic and to diminish stigma. Study Aim To enhance understanding of TB-related stigmatizing perceptions and to describe TB patients' experiences of stigma in order to point out recommendations to improve TB policy. Methods We conducted a mixed method study at Kanyama clinic and surrounding areas, in Lusaka, Zambia; structured interviews with 300 TB patients, multiple in-depth interviews with 30 TB patients and 10 biomedical health workers, 3 focus group discussions with TB patients and treatment supporters, complemented by participant observation and policy analysis of the TB control program. Predictors of stigma were identified by use of multivariate regression analyses; qualitative analysis of the in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation was used for triangulation of the study findings. Results We focused on the 138/300 patients that described TB-related perceptions and attitudes, of whom 113 (82%) reported stigma. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data from the TBAC study are contained within the paper. Additional data will be made available by our first author. The original data contain information which may lead to the identification of study subjects and in order to protect their privacy, a request to gain access to the original data is needed. Funding: No specific funding was received for this study other than the personal grants for ALC specified below. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. both among children and adults and included low self-esteem, insults, ridicule, discrimination, social exclusion, and isolation leading to a decreased quality of life and social status, non-disclosure, and/or difficulties with treatment compliance and adherence. Women had significantly more stigma-related problems than men. Conclusions The findings illustrate that many TB patients faced stigma-related issues, often hindering effective TB control and suggesting that current efforts to reduce stigma are not yet optimal. The content and implementation of sensitization programs should be improved and more emphasis needs to be placed on women and children. Introduction Alongside biological, economic, and cultural barriers to effective tuberculosis (TB) control, stigma constitutes one of the major social factors causing hospital delay and hindering compliance among TB patients The importance of addressing stigma related to TB is illustrated by the fact that this disease is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Zambia ranks 29 th among the world's top TB countries identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) having 427/100.000 incident TB cases in the year 2012. HIV co-infection rate is 61% and MDR-TB prevails in 0.3% of new Consequences of Stigma for Tuberculosis Patients in Urban Zambia PLOS ONE
Author Correction: Global phylogenetic analysis of Escherichia coli and plasmids carrying the mcr-1 gene indicates bacterial diversity but plasmid restriction (Scientific Reports, (2017), 7, 1, (15364), 10.1038/s41598-017-15539-7)
No full textIn the original version of this Article, Martin C. J. Bootsma, Perry J. van Genderen, Abraham Goorhuis, Martin Grobusch, Nicky Molhoek, Astrid M. L. Oude Lashof, Ellen E. Stobberingh & Henri A. Verbrugh were incorrectly listed as the COMBAT consortium. This error has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the Article, and in the accompanying supplementary material
TB challenges in hard-to-reach populations and children: Addressing TB control in Europe & imaging paediatric TB in Africa
No full textIn the first part of this thesis we discuss methods for TB identification and management of hard-to-reach populations (migrants, homeless people, drug users and sex workers) in low-incidence settings, like the European Union. We found that stigma and access to health care are the main barriers for TB services uptake. In the contrary, chest X-ray (CXR) screening by mobile clinic, active referral and involvement of community health workers improve TB identification and treatment completion. In the second part we focus on chest ultrasound as a diagnostic tool for pulmonary tuberculosis in children and other respiratory diseases. We found that the occurrence of pleural effusion on chest ultrasound, in an older child in a TB-endemic setting, is associated with confirmed pulmonary TB. Additionally, we found that consolidations resolve less quickly in children with confirmed TB compared to children with other respiratory diseases and that enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes were larger in children with confirmed TB. We compared chest ultrasound with CXR and found that chest ultrasound picks up abnormal findings more often than CXR and has a higher interreader agreement. Additionally we showed that chest ultrasound has a high diagnostic accuracy in diagnosing childhood pneumonia and could be a useful tool for the diagnosis of other respiratory diseases in children. Chest ultrasound is a promising tool to diagnose pulmonary TB, and in settings were other imaging techniques are lacking, chest ultrasound should be considered for the diagnosis of pulmonary TB and other respiratory diseases
Reducing the burden of tuberculosis and sepsis in Gabon: Clinical and epidemiological investigations for improved control
No full textEach year, an estimated 1.5 and 11 million people died of tuberculosis and sepsis, respectively. Most cases occur in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Gabon is listed in the top 30 tuberculosis/HIV high-burden countries. Studies performed for this thesis investigated the contributors to the burden of tuberculosis and sepsis in Gabon and suggested actions for improved control. Several research designs including a pragmatic clinical trial, systematic review and meta-analysis, cross-sectional, operational and qualitative studies have been combined to generate the outcomes reported in this thesis. The main findings were the following. There is a high prevalence of smoking in tuberculosis patients in Gabon (30%) and smoking is associated with diagnostic delay. Forty-six per cent (46%) of the tuberculosis patients had at least either dyslipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes, or obesity with a majority of newly-diagnosed hypertension and diabetes. One patient out of three with drug-resistant tuberculosis has never been treated for tuberculosis before, highlighting the urgent need to improve drug-resistant tuberculosis case-finding strategies at the community level for early diagnosis and treatment. Almost 64% of HIV-negative patients with tuberculosis sepsis died, and the diagnosis was obtained for 85% of them only post-mortem. Individual sepsis predicting scores such as qSOFA, SIRS, MEWS, and UVA, could not identify sepsis patients with accuracy but should be combined for better performance. Sepsis is a silent killer in many countries. Future research should be designed to provide the evidence needed to engage health policy stakeholders to consider sepsis as a global health priority
Reducing the burden of tuberculosis and sepsis in Gabon: Clinical and epidemiological investigations for improved control
No full textEach year, an estimated 1.5 and 11 million people died of tuberculosis and sepsis, respectively. Most cases occur in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Gabon is listed in the top 30 tuberculosis/HIV high-burden countries. Studies performed for this thesis investigated the contributors to the burden of tuberculosis and sepsis in Gabon and suggested actions for improved control. Several research designs including a pragmatic clinical trial, systematic review and meta-analysis, cross-sectional, operational and qualitative studies have been combined to generate the outcomes reported in this thesis. The main findings were the following. There is a high prevalence of smoking in tuberculosis patients in Gabon (30%) and smoking is associated with diagnostic delay. Forty-six per cent (46%) of the tuberculosis patients had at least either dyslipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes, or obesity with a majority of newly-diagnosed hypertension and diabetes. One patient out of three with drug-resistant tuberculosis has never been treated for tuberculosis before, highlighting the urgent need to improve drug-resistant tuberculosis case-finding strategies at the community level for early diagnosis and treatment. Almost 64% of HIV-negative patients with tuberculosis sepsis died, and the diagnosis was obtained for 85% of them only post-mortem. Individual sepsis predicting scores such as qSOFA, SIRS, MEWS, and UVA, could not identify sepsis patients with accuracy but should be combined for better performance. Sepsis is a silent killer in many countries. Future research should be designed to provide the evidence needed to engage health policy stakeholders to consider sepsis as a global health priority
Molecular approaches in the detection and characterization of Leptospira
No full textDe ziekte van Weil wordt overgedragen van dieren op mensen, en is niet eenvoudig en tijdig vast te stellen met de huidige diagnostiek. Ahmed Ahmed ontwikkelde een snelle DNA-test (real-time PCR) om de ziekte in een vroeg stadium te ontdekken. Het voordeel hiervan is dat de behandeling met het antibioticum kan beginnen in een fase waarin deze het meest effectief is. Het typeren van bacteriën (leptospiren) is belangrijk om te zien hoe de ziekte zich verspreidt. Ahmed ontwikkelde hiertoe nieuwe, eenvoudige methoden en toepassingen
- …
