Environment and Public Health Research

Public and private healthcare administration priorities in new electronic age

Revaz Lordkipanidze — 2024-07-12

The work defines the such priorities of healthcare administration as creation of free-tax medical town-campuses and reduction of costs for accessibility of medical services, increase in service speed and improvement in the quality, constant process of improving the qualification, wide-regional network management, combination of public and private insurance, essential increase in healthcare costs of GDP, striving for the highest standards of technical level, ensuring the non-profitability of medical organizations, combining various stages of medical services, electronic transparency and direct communication of financial reporting with some needful maintaining of commercial secrets and bank accounts, usage of wide outsourcing practices.

Mortality in neonate bats infested by ectoparasite bugs in India; humans are at risk too

Shanti Lal Choubisa — 2024-12-12

Human bed-bugs are well known and are found almost all over the world. Many types of bugs that infest various species of bats (Chiroptera: Mammalia) are found in different geographical areas or ecosystems, feeding on their blood. These small bugs, which are external parasitic insects, belong to the family Cimicidae of the order Hemiptera of the class Insecta of the phylum Arthropoda of the animal kingdom. Their bites can cause negative health effects in humans such as skin reactions, anemia, insomnia, anxiety, and panic attacks. Although their bites and bloodsucking do not kill any host. In general, bat-bugs infest adult and old bats. But, recently in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, six neonates or neonate bats of small Asiatic yellow bats (Scotophilus kuhlii) were also found infested with bat-bugs ectoparasites belonging to the genus Cimex Linnaeus, 1758 (Cimex pattoni). Such a rare and unique instance has never been observed and reported earlier from any geographical area in the world. Interestingly, out of these, three were also found dead (66.6%), two were in a dying state, and one was in a critical condition or struggling for survival. Due to our limitation, the exact cause of death in these infested bat neonates with bug parasites has not been investigated. In the present communication, details of this case have been focused on and also focus on how much people are at risk of infestation from these external parasitic bat-bugs.

First field and laboratory trial of VectorBac® WG around the airport zone of the capital city of Libreville, Gabon

Sevidzem Silas Lendzele — 2024-12-25

Context/Purpose: The urban ecosystem of Akanda behind the airport of the capital city of Libreville in Gabon, harbors diverse and dense mosquito larval habitats and hotspots for malaria and arboviruses transmission. To effectively conduct vector control, it is imperative to adopt an integrated approach by adding biolarvicides to the toolbox. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a biolarvicide under laboratory and field conditions. Methods: In Gabon, this current pilot and preliminary study sought to test the efficacy of the biolarvicide VectorBac® Water dispersable Granule (WG) (VBG) during the rainy season period (March to May 2024) under field and laboratory conditions following the 2005 World Health Organisation protocol. Results: For the bioassay of VBG, in the laboratory, the required dose to kill 88% and 100% of the larvae in rearing cups was 0.001 g/mL and 0.01 g/mL respectively. Under field conditions, the percentage larval density reduction irrespective of the microhabitat type ranged from 90 to 100% and the mosquito larval density reduction between test and control groups in the field differed statistically (X²=34; p = 0.026). Conclusion: The larvae from Akanda tested under field and laboratory conditions were very sensitive to the standard dose recommended by the manufacturer after 24 hrs post-treatment with VBG. This pilot study provides baseline information that is required to conduct a longitudinal study to evaluate the residual effect of VBG in different ecological settings in Gabon.