infectious diseases

• Viral aetiology, epidemiology and disease burden of paediatric pneumonia hospitalisations in the coastal Kenyan setting.

• Disease burden and genetic diversity of rotavirus in hospitalized rural Kenyan children

• Investigating the aetiology and spatial-temporal risk factors of diarrhoeal pathogens using a broad spectrum real-time PCR detection assay

• The effects of strain variation on respiratory syncytial virus infection and Immunity (Charles Sande, PhD Student)

• RSV evolution and molecular epidemiology (Charles Nyaigoti, WT Masters Fellow)

• Genetic diversity of group A rotavirus strains in severe diarrhoeal admissions

More information:

• Repiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV)
• Rotavirus

Cerebral malaria, meningitis and encephalitis are the most common causes of acute encephalopathies in children in sub-Saharan Africa. All are associated with seizures and may be complicated by shock and intracranial hypertension. These features are associated with prolonged coma, increased mortality and both short and long-term cognitive and neurological deficits. Children with multiple risk factors have even poorer outcomes.

Seizures may be completely unapparent clinically. Clinical signs of intracranial hypertension are a late feature and intracranial pressure monitoring is an invasive procedure unavailable in most health units in sub-Saharan Africa.