Background: Nosocomial infection’s (NIs) data are scarce in developing countries. In some of these countries, national guidelines for its prevention by health facilities have introduced surveillance recommendations including Infection Control Assessment Tool (ICAT). The aim of our study was to evaluate the compliance levels of NIs recommendations.

Methodology: We conducted a cross-sectional study from September to December 2018 in 10 health facilities in Yaounde. A checklist with two modules from the ICAT (Health Facility information and Infection Control Program) was used to determine the degree of compliance towards the recommendations by performing interviews, observations and consultation of documents.

Results: Sixty (60) % of health facilities are aware of the national guidelines and regulation on the fight against NIs but only 30% have adopted them.  Accreditation standards applicable to health facilities are not known by any of the health facilities. The recommendations concerning demographic characteristics, water supply and the general characteristics on rooms were generally respected (more than 50%) in 90% of the health facilities. 100% of health facilities had less than fifty (50)% compliance level for the fight against NIs recommendations with compliance levels below 15% for 50% of them. This worst compliance (less than 15%) was especially observed with recommended practices concerning responsibilities and authorities (40% of health facilities), functionality of infection and control committees (50% of health facilities), key personnel responsible for fight against NIs (30% of health facilities) and study of outbreaks and surveillance of NIs (100% of health facilities). Training programs on fight against NIs had better scores (30% of health facilities with more than 50% of compliance levels). The Fischer test shows that there is a significant relationship between the compliance with all these recommended practices and the health facility capacity (P= 0, 0476) .

Conclusion: NIs control programs in Yaounde health facilities are insufficient. Awareness, training, promotion and follow-up actions are necessary for the understanding and adoption of recommendations on the monitoring of NIs.

The high and increasing rate of uncertainty in the world’s Foreign Exchange Market (FEM) is one that poses a great concern to the market players, traders and policy makers. There is need to come up with reliable and sophisticated models foreign exchange rate and its determinants in order to predict their future values hence reduce the risks. This paper makes use of the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to forecast the foreign exchange rate of Turkey and inflation a major determinant of foreign exchange rate. This paper provides that ARIMA(3,1,3) is the best ARIMA model for forecasting foreign exchange rate of Turkey and that ARIMA(1,1,4) is the best ARIMA model for forecasting Turkey’s inflation (CPI). The paper also postulates that ceteris Paribas the foreign exchange rate of the lira against the dollar will be stable in the short run future. However, with the passage of time the suggested model of forecasting foreign exchange rate and inflation of Turkey should always be updated with current data. ACF, PACF, AIC and BIC together with forecasting performance measures like MAE, MAPE, Bias proportion, RMSE and Theil U statistics are very useful in the process of best model selection.

The objective of the study to examine the breastfeeding knowledge, altitude and practices of lactating mothers 0-6 postpartum. This cross sectional study was conducted on 260 lactating women living in Mwanamukia, Nairobi Kenya. A structured questionnaire was used on social, socio-economic characteristics. SPSS version 20 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient determined associations. More than half of the respondents were literate, married and lived in male headed households. Others business people, single and Meru ethnicity. Majority 36-40 years age category. Majority (61.6%) participated in urban agriculture.  57.3% of the respondents owned land.  88.5% had heard about exclusive breastfeeding, 96.2% breastfed exclusively for 4 months, 57.7 knew infant should be breastfed immediately after birth, 26.5% breastfeed after2-24 hours of delivery.67.3% frequent suckling does not increase milk production. 46.9% agreed an infant first food breastmilk, 26.5% cow’s milk and 23.8% porridge. 94.2% altitude exclusively breastfeed 6 months, 46.1% believed feed infant breast milk while 30.4% cow’s milk, 23.4% porridge. 48.1% breast milk sufficient, 82.7%  colostrum  be fed to infant, 17.3% colostrum.81.2% felt good giving infant something to eat before 6 months, 18.8%  afraid  child well cry. 52.7% felt exclusively breastfed not healthier than exclusively breastfed.94.1% breastfed last child. 50% breastfed immediately, 29.2% gave something after one month, 48.1% gave something after 2 months. 52.3% breastfed on demand, 34.2% when child cried. Illiterate Mothers had inappropriate feeding practices (OR1.578, CI 1.762-2.292). The study concludes that knowledge and practice did not have any relationship, altitude influenced feeding habits. 

Socio-economic status is a multi-factorial condition which is embedded in environmental, material and personal characteristics. The aim of this study was to determine the social demographic and social economic characteristics of lactating mothers in Mwanamukia, Nairobi and their health condition. This cross sectional study was conducted on 260 purposively selected lactating women living in Mwanamukia, Nairobi Kenya. A structured, validated and pre-tested questionnaire was used to obtain information on social, economic and demographic characteristics and the health staus. Data was entered into SPSS version 20 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine associations. Majority of the respondents were married (62.7%) or single (25.4%). 44.4% had achieved primary school education while 40% had attained Secondary ‘O’ level education. The maximum number of people living in households was 12 while the average number was 6. The study had respondents from different ethnic backgrounds. Majority Meru (25.5%) and Luhya (17.3%).  The average monthly income was 27, 154.12 Kenyan shillings. Majority were business people (28.6%) and housewives (23.9%). 71.5% of household heads were men while 28.5% were women. Majority 73.5% suffered from fever, worm infestation 12.1%, Diarrhea 2.2%, diabetes 2.1% and HIV/AIDS 2.1More than half of the respondents interviewed were literate, married and lived in households headed by men.  A quarter of them were business people, single and had Meru ethnicity. The highest number of people fell in the 36-40 years age category. More than half of the respondents had a given form of health condition.

Background: Lesions of the Thoracic and lumbar spine (TL) are numerous. These lesions affect one or more columns (anterior, middle and posterior) of the spine and compress the spinal cords either from anterior and posterior, giving rise to the features of radiculo-myelopathy. These lesions can be approached either from the anterior or posterior aspect of the spine. We present our last 10 years experience regarding the comparison between two approaches. Methods: Retrospective analysis of records of all patients with thoracic and lumbar lesion treated in our hospital between January 2005 and June 2014 was performed. Over the last 10 years, we came across 186 patients of thoracic and lumbar lesion lesion who were operated either by anterior or posterior approach and were the focus of this study. Follow up ranged from 6 months to 7 years. Results: All the patients presented with neurological deficits. They were evaluated with investigation protocol of our hospital. Anterior approach was done in 38 cases (n = 38) and posterior approach was done in 148 cases (n = 148). We compared between the two groups in terms of perioperative complications, recovery, persisting symptoms and mortality. Conclusion: Complete recovery is better in the posterior approach (74.3%) v/s 52.6%) and morality is more in the anterior approach (7.9% v/s 1.3%). Keywords: Columns, radiculo-myelopathy, thoracic, lumbar