BackgroundThe use of herbal medicine has been on increase in many developing and industrialized countries. More pregnant women use herbal remedies to treat pregnancy related problems due to cost-effectiveness of therapy and easy access of these products. We sought to assess the prevalence of herbal medicine use and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics of public health facilities.MethodsFacility based cross sectional study was conducted among 363 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics from May to June 2015 at public health facilities in Hossana town, Hadiya zone, Southern Ethiopia. Pretested structured questionnaire was used to collect data from each study subject. Bivariate logistic regression analysis was used to see significance of association between the outcome and independent variables. Odds ratios at 95 % CI were computed to measure the strength of the association between the outcome and the independent variables. P-value <0.05 was considered as a statistically significant in multivariate analysis.ResultTwo hundred fifty eight (73.1 %) of pregnant women used herbal medicine during current pregnancy . The herbal medicines commonly taken during current pregnancy were ginger (55.8 %), garlic (69.8 %), eucalyptus (11.6 %), tenaadam (rutachalenssis) (26.4 %), damakesse (ocimumlamiifolium) (22.8 %), feto (3.5 %) and omore (3.1 %). Being students (AOR: (5.68, 95 % CI: (1.53, 21.13), second trimester of pregnancy (AOR: 0.22, 95 % CI: (0.08, 0.76), sufficient knowledge on herbal medicine (AOR: 0.37, 95 % CI: (0.19, 0.79), no formal education (AOR: 4.41, 95 % CI: (1.11, 17.56), primary education (AOR: 4.15, 95 % CI: (1.51, 11.45) and secondary education (AOR: 2.55, 95 % CI: (1.08,6.03) were significantly associated with herbal medicine use.ConclusionThe findings of this study showed that herbal medicine use during pregnancy is a common experience. Commonly used herbal medicines during current pregnancy were garlic, ginger, tenaadam, damakasse and eucalyptus. Educational status, occupation, knowledge on herbal medicine and second trimester of pregnancy were the major factors affecting use of herbal medicine. Health education about the effects of herbal medicine on pregnancy should be given during antenatal care sessions and through media. Health care providers, especially those that are involved in antenatal care should aware of evidence regarding potential benefits or harm of herbal medicinal agents when used by pregnant women.

Background: Preterm birth (PTB) can be caused by different factors. The factors can be classified into different categories: socio demographic, obstetric, reproductive health, medical, behavioral and nutritional related. The objective of this review was identifying determinants of PTB among mothers who gave birth in East African countries. Methods: We have searched the following electronic bibliographic databases: PubMed, Google scholar, Cochrane library, AJOL (African journal online). Cross sectional, case control and cohort study published in English were included. There was no restriction on publication period. Studies with no abstracts and or full texts, editorials, and qualitative in design were excluded. Funnel plot was used to check publication bias. I-squared statistic was used to check heterogeneity. Pooled analysis was done by using fixed and random effect model. The Joanna Briggs Critical Appraisal Tools for review and meta-analysis was used to check the study quality. Results: A total of 58 studies with 134,801 participants were used to identify determinants of PTB. On pooled analysis, PTB was associated with age < 20 years (AOR 1.76, 95% CI: 1.33-2.32), birth interval less than 24 months (AOR 2.03, 95% CI 1.57-2.62), multiple pregnancy (AOR 3.44,95% CI: 3.02-3.91), < 4 antenatal care (ANC) visits (AOR 5.52, 95%

BackgroundRecent studies have presented conflicting findings about whether malaria is associated with an increased or decreased risk of malnutrition. Therefore, assessing the relationship between these two disastrous diseases in the most vulnerable groups, such as in children aged below 5 years (under-five children), may lead to the discovery of new low-cost and effective aides to current methods of malnutrition prevention in malaria-endemic areas. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the relationship between malaria and malnutrition among under five children in an area with a high degree of malaria transmission.MethodsThe study involved comparing malnourished children aged 6–59 months and nourished children of the same age for their past exposure to malaria, in Shashogo District, Southern Ethiopia. A validated structured questionnaire was used to collect home to home socioeconomic data and anthropometric instruments for clinical data. The collected data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics by means of EpiData entry software and STATA data analysis software.ResultsA total of 356 (89 malnourished and 267 nourished) under-five children participated in the study. Previous exposure to Plasmodium infection was found to be a predictor for the manifestation of malnutrition in under-five children (P = 0.02 [OR = 1.87, CI = 1.115–3.138]). Children from a household with a monthly income of less than USD 15 were 4.5 more likely to be malnourished as compared to the other children (P = 0.001 [OR = 0.422, CI = 0.181–0.978]).ConclusionThis study found that exposure to Plasmodium has a significant impact on the nutritional status of children. In addition, socio-demographic factors, such as family income, may play a role in determining whether children are malnourished or not and may lead to increased morbidity due to malnourishment in children living in malaria-endemic areas. Therefore, malnutrition control interventions should be consolidated with malaria prevention strategies particularly in high malaria transmission areas.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40249-016-0221-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ethiopian traditional alcoholic beverages namely tella, tej and areki are very common drinks in the country. Ten (10) alcohol vending houses were considered in the study by considering two from each five sub-cities, purposely for 'filtered' tella sampling and five for the unfiltered tella, tej and areki samples. The alcoholic contents of filter-tella, tej and areki were measured and found in the range of 3.84 to 6.48, 8.94 to 13.16 and 33.95 to 39.9% v/v ethanol, respectively. Difference in pH values and ethanol levels among all samples was significant (p<0.05). Variations within samples of each vending houses, coefficient of variation (CV>10%) among all samples were significant, though the variation in pH of the alcohols studied were analyzed and found at drinking range or according to European Brewery Convention. Finally, sensory responses which were taken from the community (people drinking these alcohols), indicated that they are high in aroma (bitterness for tella than other drinks reported).

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Background: Severe acute malnutrition remains one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this study was to investigate morbidity and mortality trends and factors associated with mortality of under-five children admitted and managed for severe acute malnutrition in NEMMH. Methods: Four years retrospective cohort study was conducted on 500 under-five children admitted with the diagnosis of severe acute malnutrition. The study population was all under-five children admitted to the inpatient nutrition unit between 2012 and 2015. Data was entered using Epi-Data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 16 for analysis. A Kaplan-Meier curve was also used to estimate survival probability of different types of severe acute malnutrition. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to predict the risk of death among predictor while adjusting for other variables. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Result: A total of 500 children were enrolled into the study. Kwashiorkor was the most frequently recorded morbidity accounting for 43.0%. Pneumonia was seen the commonest form of comorbid disease. It was the most common co-morbidity across all morbidity groups. (27.6% in kwashiorkor, 37.5% in marasmus and 37.7% in marasmic-kwashiorkor). The average length of stay in the hospital was 11 days. Children with new admission were 86% less likely to die than repeated admission given that the children were admitted to paediatric ward (HR: 0.14, 95% CI: (0.06, 0.35). Kaplan Meier survival curves also showed children with marasmus and those with repeated admission had reduced survival rates. The overall mortality rate was 7%. The mortality trends vary irregularly in each year but morbidity trend increased with admission from 2014 to 2015. Conclusion: Mortality trends of SAM vary irregularly across the years but morbidity trends increased with admission from 2014 to 2015. An admission type was significantly associated with mortality. Morbidity and co-morbid diseases did not show significant effect on mortality of the children. Health extension workers and stakeholders should give due concern on promotion of proper nutrition in a community.

Background: Faecal-oral diseases represent the largest health burden associated with a lack of improved sanitation. Diarrhea is the most burdensome of these and accounting for over millions of deaths each year. Access to improved household sanitary facilities have great health benefits ranging from reductions in diarrhea, helmenth infections and trachoma through reduced risk of accidents and enhanced psycho-social well-being. Objective: This study was aimed at assessing the availability of improved sanitation facilities and factors affecting it among rural communities in Lemo Woreda of Hadiya zone in 2014. Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted from March to April, 2014 in Lemo Woreda, Hadiya Zone. To draw a total sample of size 515, a multistage sampling technique was used. Heads of the households or their spouses were interviewed to collect data using structured, pretested questionnaire. Data were entered using Epi-Data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 16 for analysis. Binary logistic regression was used to predict variables which have independent association with outcome variables. Results: The findings of this study showed that 35.9% (95%CI: 30.9%, 40.9%) of the households included in the study had improved sanitation facilities. The likelihood of improved sanitation facility was 2.3 fold higher in households that had a higher income than those with lower income (AOR: 2.346 (1.483, 3.714)). The odds of having improved sanitation facilities was 6.5 folds higher in households headed by government employers/students as compared to households headed by farmers (AOR: 6.521, 95%CI: (2.216, 19.188)). Respondents who had sufficient knowledge on improved sanitation facilities were 1.6 times more likely to have improved sanitation facilities as those who had insufficient knowledge on improved sanitation facilities (AOR: 1.606, 95%CI: (1.022, 2.253)). Respondents who had positive attitude towards improved sanitation facilities were 2 times more likely to had improved sanitation facilities as those who had negative attitude towards improved

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