Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of a monovalent rotavirus vaccine against severe rotavirus disease and to assess its impact on diarrhoea in children aged less than 2 years after national introduction in El Salvador, a low-middle income country in Central America.Design Matched case-control study.Setting Seven hospitals in cities across El Salvador, January 2007 to June 2009.Participants 323 children aged less than 2 years admitted with laboratory confirmed rotavirus diarrhoea and 969 healthy controls matched for age and neighbourhood.Main outcome measure Effectiveness of rotavirus vaccination ((1–adjusted odds ratio of vaccination)×100) against rotavirus diarrhoea requiring hospital admission.Results Cases and controls were similar for breast feeding, premature birth, maternal education, and socioeconomic variables. G1P[8] strains were identified in 92% of rotavirus cases. Effectiveness of two doses of vaccination against diarrhoea requiring hospital admission was 76% (95% confidence interval 64% to 84%). Protection was significantly lower (P=0.046) among children aged 12 months or more (59%, 27% to 77%) compared with children aged 6-11 months (83%, 68% to 91%). One dose of vaccine was 51% (26% to 67%) effective. At the sentinel hospitals, all admissions for diarrhoea among children under 5 declined by 40% in 2008 and by 51% in 2009 from the prevaccine year 2006.Conclusions A monovalent rotavirus vaccine was highly effective against admissions for rotavirus diarrhoea in children aged less than 2 years in El Salvador and substantially reduced the number of such admissions in this low-middle income setting. The impact on disease epidemiology after vaccination, particularly among older children, warrants future attention.

Abstractobjectives To determine the seroprevalence of Chagas disease among pregnant women and estimate the risk factors for Chagas disease during pregnancies.methods Community-based serological tests on Trypanosoma cruzi and structured interviews on socio-demographic and socio-economic status were conducted with pregnant women registered at three health centres in Sonsonate province, El Salvador.results Of 797 pregnant women participating in the study, 29 (3.6%) were infected with Chagas disease. None had clinical symptoms. The results of bivariate analyses showed the significant association between seropositivity and maternal age ≥35 years, anaemia, illiteracy, having no formal school education and having knowledge on Chagas disease (P < 0.05). The results of multivariate analysis indicate that age ≥35 years and anaemia were significantly associated with being infected with Chagas disease among pregnant women (OR = 3.541 and 5.197, respectively).conclusion We recommend that the national Chagas disease control programme be better coordinated with the national maternal and child health programme to introduce blood screening for T. cruzi during antenatal visits. If financial constraint allows systematic blood screening to be only partially implemented, resources should be focused on pregnant women ≥35 years and women who have anaemia.keywords chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, pregnant women, seroprevalence, El Salvador