There are about 141 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Cameroon. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
Although Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax), one of the five malaria species causing parasites, has the widest geographical distribution, it is rare in sub-Saharan Africa due to the absence of a red blood cell receptor (Duffy antigen) in black Africans. Duffy-negative individuals are, for the most part, therefore refractory to P. vivax infection and the Duffy-negative phenotype is found at highest frequencies in Africa, whereas it is relatively rare elsewhere. P. vivax has however, been observed as single infections in up to 5% of Duffy-negative febrile patients in one health facility in Dschang, a region of low malaria transmission in Western highlands of Cameroon. Whereas in the littoral South West and Southern forest of Cameroon characterised by high malaria transmission, areas, there are contrasting molecular evidence of human P. vivax infection. While important, the significance is limited from an epidemiological point of view, concerning the source, transmission, distribution range of P. vivax. There is thus a challenge in the true estimation of malaria burden, as well as the attributable parasite species in infections occurring in the low transmission areas of Western Cameroon. As a consequence, our understanding of the local epidemiology of malaria in Western Cameroon warrants formal investigation. The current proposal is a multi-centre observational study. Its purpose is to characterise the malaria species composition and particularly exposure and burden of P. vivax across malaria endemic settings in Cameroon. It will use multiplex serological methods based on quantitative suspension array on finger-stick blood samples collected from febrile patients of ages 1-100 during two malaria transmission seasons in different eco-climatic regions in Cameroon.
Surgical site infections (SSI) constitute an important health concern in low and middle income countries, leading to prolonged hospital stay and increased costs. Previous studies indicate that in Africa up to 1/3 of patients undergoing surgery may be affected by a postoperative infection. The development and implementation of context-specific SSI prevention guidelines is important to reduce this complication. To deploy efficient context-specific measures, data on epidemiology and microbiology of these infections are needed. This means to adapt the prevention measures to the context-specific risk factors for surgical site infections in resource-limited settings, and to give locally adapted recommendations on antimicrobial therapy based on local resistance patterns. However, data in this respect are scarce in low and middle income countries. This present study will contribute to the needed epidemiology and microbiology data on SSI in Cameroon. It will be carried out as a prospective cohort study at the Mbouo Protestant hospital in the West Region of Cameroon. The incidence, microbial spectrum and respective antimicrobial resistance of SSI as well as the risk factors of SSI will be systematically investigated. The study will include 300 patients at the Hôpital Protestant de Mbouo (HPM) who underwent surgery and gave their informed consent for inclusion, the timeframe is 04/2021 - 11/2021. An active SSI surveillance system will be put in place for 30 postoperative days to diagnose SSI. Expected outcomes: The incidence of SSI is likely to be higher than 10%. Concerning risk factors, preoperative bodywashing and perioperative antibioprophylaxis is expected to be protective against SSI. Up to 1/3 of SSI are expected to occur after hospital discharge. For the microbial spectrum, a high proportion of Staphylococcus aureus is likely to be found. For the antimicrobial resistance no estimation can be give as data is non-existent in that region from the literature.
Type 1 diabetes has been poorly characterised, with very sparse information available in the literature about the characteristics of the disease in Africa. Atypical young onset diabetes is often reported by clinicians in sub-Saharan Africa, including patients who have the phenotype of type 1 diabetes but do not appear to have an absolute insulin requirement. The onset of type 1 diabetes in many sub-Saharan African populations seem to occur at later ages (20s to 40s) than what is generally seen in Caucasian populations. The investigators seek to characterise young-onset insulin treated diabetes (clinically diagnosed type 1 diabetes) in sub-Saharan Africa;
Introduction Global surgery is a growing movement worldwide, but its expansion has not been quantified. Google Search is the most popular search engine worldwide, and Google Trends analyzes its queries to determine popularity trends. The investigators used Google Trends to analyze the regional and temporal popularity of global surgery (GS). Furthermore, the investigators compared GS with global health (GH) to understand if the two were correlated. Methods The investigators searched the terms "global surgery" and "global health" on Google Trends (Google Inc., CA, USA) from January 2004 to May 2021. The investigators identified time trends and compared the two search terms using SPSS v26 (IBM, WA, USA) to run summary descriptive analyses and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.
In this study, the availability of spine neuronavigation in Africa was evaluated. Access to surgical equipment is an important goal of global surgery and global neurosurgery. The study findings show that there are regional differences in access to spine neuronavigation techniques and highlight that the major barriers to increased prevalence are cost and lack of trained personnel.
This is an international, cross-sectional and descriptive study that aims to investigate differences in patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) and that aims to explore the profile and healthcare needs of adults with congenital heart diseases.
This feasibility assessment is to provide quantitative findings of an intervention integrating immunizations into maternity and newborn care across 15 health facilities in Cameroon.
Cervical cancer remains a major public health challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to financial and logistical issues. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation for cervical cancer screening in LMICs includes Human Papillomavirus (HPV) testing as primary screening followed by visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and treatment. However, VIA is a subjective procedure dependent on the healthcare provider's experience. Therefore, an objective approach based on quantitative diagnostic algorithms is desirable to improve performance of VIA. With this objective and in a collaboration between the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department of the Geneva University Hospital (HUG) and the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL), our group started the development of an automated smartphone-based image classification device called AVC (for Automatic VIA Classifier). Two-minute videos of the cervix are recorded during VIA and classified using an artificial neural network (ANN) and image processing techniques to differentiate precancer and cancer from non-neoplastic cervical tissue. The result is displayed on the smartphone screen with a delimitation map of the lesions when appropriate. The key feature used for classification is the dynamic of cervical acetowhitening during the 120 second following the application of acetic acid. Precancerous and cancerous cells whiten more rapidly than non-cancerous ones and their whiteness persists stronger overtime. Our aim is to assess the diagnostic performance of the AVC and to compare it with the performance of current triage tests (VIA and cytology). Histopathological examination will serve as reference standard. Participants' and providers' acceptability will also be considered as part of the study. The study will be nested in an ongoing cervical cancer screening program called "3T-approach" (for Test, Triage and Treat) which includes HPV self-sampling for women aged 30 to 49 years, followed by VIA triage and treatment if needed. The AVC will be evaluated in this context. The study's risk category is A according to swiss ethical guidelines. This decision is based on the fact that the planned measures for sampling biological material or collecting personal data entail only minimal risks and burdens.
CARECA-CHF study is a non-randomized, prospective, single-arm study, enrolled ambulatory patients with stable chronic heart failure [New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II/III]. Patients will be followed-up during a period of 06-08 weeks. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of a cardiac rehabilitation program on patients with stable chronic heart failure in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
This is a diagnostic evaluation comparing the performance of real-time PCR performed at a national reference laboratory and a LAMP assay performed at a regional hospital for the diagnosis of yaws