BackgroundMaintaining quality of vaccines is one of the main challenges of immunization programs in Ethiopia. The objective of this study is to assess the factor affecting vaccine cold chain management practice in immunization health institutions in East Gojam zone of Amhara region, Ethiopia.MethodAn institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from March to April 2017 in ten districts of East Gojam zone of Amhara Region. Descriptive statistics and Logistic regression analysis were carried out to identify factors related to the practice of cold chain management.ResultAmong 60 health institutions, only 46(76.7%) had functional refrigerators. Twenty-one (35%) had a functional generator for backup service and 28(46.6%) had a car/motorbike for transportation of vaccines in case of refrigerator/power failure. Twenty-nine (48.3%) had known the correct vaccine storage temperature (2 °C – 8 °C) in the refrigerator and the results of this study revealed that only 23(38.3%) of respondents had sufficient knowledge about vaccine cold chain management. The finding of this study also revealed that 35(58.3%) had appropriate vaccine cold chain management practice and the rest 25(41.7%) had inappropriate practice. Logistic regression showed us the knowledge gap and profession were significantly associated with vaccine cold chain management practice at P < 0.05.ConclusionThis study indicates that there was a knowledge gap of health workers who are working on cold chain management. There is an urgent need to improve knowledge and practice on cold chain management through improved supervision and training at a different level of health care system.

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Background: In Ethiopia, cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer among women aged 15 to 44 years old. Cervical cancer screening is an effective measure to enhance the early detection of cervical cancer for prevention. However, the magnitude of cervical cancer screening is less than 1%. This study aimed to determine the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and related factors on screening. Method: A hospital-based cross-sectional study has been conducted from July to September 2017. Data have been collected using interviewer-administered questioner among 425 women (18-49 years age) who visited the family health department at St. Paul's Hospital. Descriptive statistics, chi-square, univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used for data analysis. Result: Of the 425 study participants, only 12.2% of women have been screened within the past 3 years. Women in the age range of 40-49 years old were more likely to be screened (36.1%) than women age 18-29 years (8%). Women living in urban were more likely to be screened (15.9%) than women living in rural (3.9%). Other factors including low monthly income, unlikely chance of having cancer, lack of knowledge, and fear test outcome were significantly associated with the low uptake of screening. Conclusion: This study revealed that the uptake of cervical cancer screening was low. Women in the potential target population of cervical cancer screening were just a proportion of all studied age groups and screening in them was more common than in younger women. Besides, rural residence, low monthly income, and lack of knowledge were important predictors for low utilization of cervical cancer screening practice.

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The pathological mechanism of Kashin-Beck disease (KBD), an endemic osteoarthritic disease, remains to be poorly understood. This study was designed to identify signaling pathways and crucial proteins involved in the pathological mechanism of KBD compared with osteoarthritis (OA). The knee cartilage samples were collected from gender-and age-matched KBD (n = 9) and OA (n = 9) patients. After preprocessing, samples were labeled with Tamdem Mass Tags 6plex multiplex kit, and analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Proteomic results were analyzed with gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and protein-protein interactions (PPI). The differential abundance proteins from KBD and OA were validated using western blot analysis. As a result, A total number of 375 proteins were identified to have differential abundance between KBD and OA, of which 121 and 254 proteins were observed to be up-regulated or down-regulated in KBD group. GO analysis shows that the differential abundant proteins are associated with cell junction and signal transducer activity from extracellular to intracellular. KEGG pathways enrichment and PPI network indicate four major pathways, including extracellular matrix -receptor interaction, focal adhesion, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-Protein kinase B (Akt), and Ras signaling pathways were involved in the degeneration of cartilage. Moreover, integrins, laminins, NF-κB and other regulative molecules were found as crucial proteins. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that compared with OA, the differential abundance proteins and signaling pathways may contribute to the occurrence and development of joint damage in KBD. Further investigation of their regulative roles and interaction may provide new insights into the pathological mechanisms and therapeutic targets for KBD.Osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive, degenerative joint disease. It is the major cause of knee pain and locomotor disability worldwide 1,2 . The WHO Scientific Groupon Rheumatic Diseases estimates that 10% of the world's population who are 60 years or older have significant clinical problems attributed to OA 3 . Unlike OA, Kashin-Beck disease (KBD) is a chronic and serious endemic osteoarticular disease, which has been in high prevalence and morbidity in Eastern Siberia of Russia, Northeast China to Sichuan-Tibet Plateau, and North Korea 4,5 . According to the statistics, there were 1.04 billion people in risk of KBD and 0.57 million patients with KBD in China 6 . However, the etiology and pathological mechanisms of KBD are still waiting to be uncovered 7 , which lessen the chances of further effective prevention and treatment measures for the current KBD patients.