Innovative approaches to neonatal jaundice diagnosis and management in low-resourced settings.

Persistent challenges in addressing severe neonatal hyperbilirubinaemia in resource-constrained settings have led to ongoing and often unacceptable rates of morbidity, disability and mortality. These challenges stem from limitations such as inadequate, inefficient or financially inaccessible diagnostic and therapeutic options. However, over the past decade, noteworthy innovations have emerged to address some of these hurdles, and these innovations are increasingly poised for broader implementation. This review provides a concise summary of these novel, economically viable diagnostic solutions, encompassing point-of-care assays and smartphone applications, as well as treatment modalities, notably more effective phototherapy and filtered sunlight. These advancements hold promise and have the potential to meaningfully reduce the burden of neonatal hyperbilirubinaemia, signifying a promising shift in the landscape of neonatal healthcare.

Maximizing Access and Minimizing Barriers to Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Open Access and Health Equity.

Access to published research has always been difficult for researchers and clinicians in low- and middle-income countries, because of the cost of and lack of access to the relevant publications. The dramatic recent increase in electronic research publications has resulted in a marked improvement in reader access to these publications through their mainly Open Access policies, however the costs of processing of submissions and publication have now become the burden of the researchers wishing to publish, rather than the readers. For many researchers working in LMIC, the Article Processing Charges (APC) are prohibitive, hampering the publication of research being conducted in and relevant to these countries. A number of grant funding agencies and international not-for-profit organizations are trying to address these issues by including funding for article publications in their grants, or by supporting publishing entities by subsiding the cost of publication, but more needs to be done by major journal publishers through markedly reducing the APC being charged to researchers in LMIC for open access facilities.

Child Sexual Abuse in Zimbabwe.

Although child sexual abuse is a significant public health problem globally, its incidence, prevention, and management is less well described in resource-poor settings. In poorer settings prevention initiatives assume even more importance since resources for managing abused children are severely limited. This article examines the current status of policy and practice related to the prevention of child sexual abuse in Zimbabwe. It identifies implementation challenges and highlights opportunities that could be embraced to reduce CSA in Zimbabwe, based on evidence synthesized from recent work. Although Zimbabwe has a well-established legal and regulatory framework to protect children from child sexual abuse, implementation of existing policies is weak. Financial, human, and material resource constraints are frequently cited to explain limited prevention activity. Effective strategies for the prevention of child sexual abuse should focus on implementing existing legislation, targeting schoolchildren, and getting community involvement. A dedicated budget would help entrench these strategies, but gains can be achieved even in the absence of this.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of infant feeding strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa.

Despite increasing availability of perinatal interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in South Africa, MTCT remains high due to breastfeeding. To inform policy decisions in the country, cost-effectiveness of alternative infant-feeding interventions was conducted. Mathematical modelling was used to simulate post-natal transmission and mortality due to infant feeding in a hypothetical cohort of 1 000 HIV-exposed infants. Lifetime costs to the health system were calculated for each strategy. Interventions compared with current practice were: increasing coverage of extended nevirapine prophylaxis (ENP) to infants from 30% (base case) to 60% without changing current feeding practices; actively supporting breastfeeding with ENP to infants for 12 months; and actively supporting exclusive formula (replacement) feeding for 6 months. HIV-free survival at 24 months and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted were estimated for typical rural and certain urban settings. Base-case analysis revealed that expanding coverage of nevirapine prophylaxis with breastfeeding is cost-saving and improves HIV-free survival. Changing feeding practices is beneficial, depending on context. Breastfeeding is dominant (less costly, more effective) in rural settings, whilst formula feeding is a dominant strategy in urban settings. Cost-effectiveness was most sensitive to proportion of women on lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) and infant mortality rate (IMR). When >55% of women are on ART, breastfeeding dominates in the urban settings modelled, whilst formula feeding is cost-effective in rural settings when IMR ≤ 45/1000. The study concludes that strategies to support breastfeeding are essential. Strengthening health systems is critical to ensure optimal nevirapine delivery during breastfeeding. A case can be made for formula feeding or breastfeeding in HIV-infected women in specific contexts.