The need for health behaviour and socio-economic research in malaria control in Thailand

Malaria is still a disease of public health importance in Thailand despite the encouraging downward trend in the number of malaria cases during the past ten years. In the last few years there were still nearly a quarter of million malaria cases detected and about 3,000 malaria deaths yearly reported. The social and economic factors seem to play major roles in keeping low persistent transmission of malaria in certain communities especially those residing in and near forested areas, mountains and foothills in the places not far away from Thai-Kampuchea border in East Thailand and Thai-Burmese border in West Thailand. These communities consist of migrants and local native residents living in newly opened lands for agriculture, and some are remote areas where communication and transportation are inaccessible. Preliminary results on these people revealed some interesting social and economic problems and health behaviour of the people in connection with persistent malaria transmission among them. It is suggested that further investigation should be carried out on the social and economic elements in these communities including migratory pattern, their population characteristics and life, social behaviour, health belief and practice, malaria prone behaviour, etc. in association with malaria transmission among them. The results to be obtained may lead to the effective control measures of malaria in future.     

Cost-effectiveness research in malaria control and the need for health behaviour and socio-economic research in malaria control in Thailand

The complexity of the malaria situation in Thailand requires behavioural and socio-economic research in wide variety of areas including; migration, illness behaviour, motivation of staff and communities and the relationship of institutional and community expenditure to reduction in morbidity. The research ideally should be constructed in such a way as to maximize the availability of methods for incorporation into routine monitoring, evaluation, and policy making activities of the Anti-Malaria Programme.     

抗磷脂综合征有待深入研究的问题:血栓性微血管病

抗磷脂综合征(antiohosoholioid svndrome,APS)临床上表现为反复动、静脉血栓,异常妊娠和血小板减少,这些症状与患者血中的抗磷脂抗体(antiphospholipid antibody,aPL)相关.在2006年11届国际APS专题研讨会(悉尼)上,基于近年来对APS发病机制和临床特点的研究的积累,提出了新的APS分类标准[1].     

Problems of urban leprosy control with special reference to case holding

The prevalence of leprosy and the proportion of bacteriologically positive cases in different parts of endemic and highly dense Bombay, India, are presented. The attendance of 8574 cases is retrospectively analyzed with respect to age, sex, occupation, type of leprosy, and presence or absence of deformity. Defaulters (6090) were traced, and the reasons for nonattendance were ascertained in 22% of the cases. In those cases who could be contacted and in those who had high bacterial and morphological indexes, multidrug therapy was being given at either a clinic or, if not possible, at their homes by experienced field workers under supervision. Recommendations are made for improving urban leprosy control work in general and for case holding in particular.     

Human behavioural research applied to the leprosy control programme of Sarawak, Malaysia

In 1984, in Sarawak, there were a total of 1,099 recorded cases of leprosy for a population of 1.3 million. However, for each case recorded, it is estimated that two others remain undiagnosed as a consequence of the stigmatization associated with leprosy. For the five year period, 1979-1983, an average of 29 new cases were detected each year of which 8.6 (30%) were deformed due to the late stages at which it was being reported. To increase the case-finding rate, human behavioural research was applied to the leprosy control programme so as to develop culture-specific health education packages aimed at self diagnosis and self referral in order to detect the large pool of undiagnosed cases hidden behind the veil of aversion, fear and ignorance. This was achieved through anthropological studies to identify how the various major ethnic groups perceived leprosy and their attitudes towards leprosy. Taking into account these findings, health education packages aimed at adults as well as children were developed for the Chinese as well as the non-Chinese, and consisted of newspaper articles, cartoon tape-slides, cartoon story books and posters.     

艾滋病防治资源需求评估方法的研究进展

随着艾滋病防治经费的不断增多,各国都面临着如何合理、有效地分配艾滋病防治资源的问题。文章系统地介绍了国际上应用较多的艾滋病防治资源需求评估方法,以利于在资源需求评估过程中,有选择性地使用适合于本地的评估方法,从而促进艾滋病防治资源更加有效的利用。