The epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus in Zambia has led to a dramatic rise in the incidence of human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8)-associated Kaposi's sarcoma in both adults and children. However, there is a paucity of knowledge about the routes of HHV-8 transmission to young children. The Zambia Children's KS-HHV8 Study, a large, prospective cohort study in Lusaka, Zambia, was launched in 2004 ...

background access to appropriate and affordable healthcare is needed to achieve better health outcomes in africa. however, access to healthcare remains low, especially among the poor. in zambia, poor access exists despite the policy by the government to remove user fees in all primary healthcare facilities in the public sector. the paper has two main objectives: (i) to examine the factors assoc...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of undernutrition is decreasing in many parts of the developing world, but challenges remain in many countries. The objective of this study was to determine factors influencing childhood nutrition status in Kenya and Zambia. The objective of this study is to determine factors associated with temporal changes in childhood nutritional status in two countries in sub-Sahar...

BACKGROUND In many countries, pregnancy tests are not freely available in family planning clinics. As a result, providers sometimes deny services to non-menstruating clients due to uncertainty about pregnancy. Few clients are actually pregnant, yet denied clients run the risk of becoming pregnant, and those sent to pharmacies pay inflated prices for inexpensive tests. To assess the programmatic...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the presence, causes and means of addressing individual and systemic stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness in Zambia. This is to facilitate the development of tailor-made antistigma initiatives that are culturally sensitive for Zambia and other low-income African countries. This is the first in-depth study on ment...

BACKGROUND Africa is facing a nutritional transition where underweight and overweight coexist. Although the majority of programs for orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) focus on undernourishment, the association between OVC primary caregiving and the caregivers' overweight status remains unclear. We investigated the association between OVC primary caregiving status with women's overweight stat...

Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Environmental Veterinary Sciences, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University, Kita 18, Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0818, Japan. Department of Biomedical Studies, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zambia, P.O. Box 32379, Lusaka, Zambia. Department of Pharmacology, School of Veterinary Medicine Rakuno Gakuen University, Ebetsu...

BACKGROUND Loss to follow-up (LTFU) is common in antiretroviral therapy (ART) programmes. Mortality is a competing risk (CR) for LTFU; however, it is often overlooked in cohort analyses. We examined how the CR of death affected LTFU estimates in Zambia and Switzerland. METHODS AND FINDINGS HIV-infected patients aged ≥18 years who started ART 2004-2008 in observational cohorts in Zambia and Sw...

HIV and AIDS still pose a major public health problem to most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia included. The objective of the paper is to determine changes in selected sexual behaviour and practice and HIV prevalence indicators between 2001-2002 and 2007. We used the Demographic and Health Survey Indicators Database for the computation of the selected indicators. We further used STATA 10...