Health Diagnostics

There are some serious congenital abnormalities and inborn errors of metabolism that leads to disability and death of an infant. Some of these conditions have effective treatment or management if detected early. By the time the symptoms are manifested it is often too late and causes severe physical and mental disability in what could have been a completely normal child.Hence it is imperative in diagnosing these disorders at the earliest. In the developed countries all the newborn babies are screened for these conditions through a newborn screening programme (NBS).

Acute respiratory infections are a leading cause of child mortality in low-resource countries. Pneumonia alone is directly responsible for the deaths of 900,000 children under-fives in the developing world annually. Early diagnosis and treatment by CHWs (Community Health Workers) in these countries could significantly reduce mortality. In the absence of radiology and blood tests the WHO recommends counting breaths to measure the respiratory rate (RR) as the diagnostic test of choice for pneumonia.

Recent evidence show that many stillbirths are preventable and urgently calls for appropriate strategies to improve awareness of risk factors and antenatal detection of at-risk babies(1). However, there is no accurate diagnostic approach to identify fetuses at risk (2,3). The current sonographic method is associated with a high false-positive rate and a significant false-negative risk(4). In addition, community awareness remains acutely low, with no strategies to support social -reintegration(5)

Rh disease, a condition caused by incompatibility between maternal and fetal blood, is a significant public health problem that causes fetal and neonatal death. Among surviving newborns, Rh disease can lead to severe jaundice, anemia, and brain damage. While Rh disease has been virtually eradicated in high-income countries, it remains a serious problem in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where proven prevention strategies have been challenging to implement.

Globally, infection leading to sepsis in infants mimics many conditions and hence early diagnosis is difficult. However, failure to treat early with antibiotics will uniformly lead to death or major disability. As a result, more neonates are unnecessarily treated with antibiotics. Over-treatment of neonates creates resistant superbugs and wastes scarce resources.

In 2014, there were an estimated 1 million incident cases of tuberculosis (TB) in children younger than 15 years of age, while as many as 140,000 children died of TB. About 75% of all childhood TB cases occur every year in the 22 high burden countries, most of which are in sub-Sahara Africa. Differentiating TB from other respiratory diseases (ODs) in children with suspected TB disease is difficult, especially if diagnosis relies on clinical and radiological features or microbiological assays, since children often cannot produce sputum.

This bold idea aims to integrate a locally produced HBsAg diagnostic test kit for screening of antenatal clinic (ANC) mothers in Kenya. Patients visiting public and faith-based health facilities form the majority and most vulnerable, yet they do not have their HBV status checked during ANC profiling. These weak diagnostic systems in our country creates a gap between patients and treatment.

Worldwide, 155 million young children are stunted placing them at risk for mortality or long-term health and developmental consequences.(1) Fetal growth restriction has been shown to be the leading risk factor for stunting later in life.(2) Various nutrition strategies have been employed globally including the use of small quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS). However, trials using the current formulations of maternal SQ-LNS during the pregnancy period have not produced overwhelming evidence for positive birth anthropometric outcomes.

The Project will contextualize and evaluate an intervention for community-based child development and maternal depression care in refugee camps. Bangladesh has received around 750,000 refugees from Myanmar. In such difficult circumstance (1, 2), this is important to enable refugee mothers to take better care of their own health and development of young children; but a contextualized intervention to deliver such care in refugee camps is found lacking.