These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: [Improved health in Zimbabwe's rural areas as a result of the rural development project].
    Author: Dahlin K, Dahlin L.
    Journal: Lakartidningen; 1984 Sep 05; 81(36):3141-3. PubMed ID: 6482596.
    Abstract:
    A rural development project carried out in Southern Zimbabwe for 5 years was aimed at improving nutrition, combatting diseases, educating villagers about proper hygiene, improving water quality, and assessing the development and nutritional status of children under 5. The community investigated consisted of 10,000 people or 1,439 families with an average of 7 persons per family. The main staple of their diet was maize, and malnutrition was prevalent. Water holes infested with bilharzia were the source of drinking water for both man and animal. The project succeeded in vaccinating 90% of preschool children against whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, and tuberculosis. A control district was chosen to compare the developmental data obtained by the Cole Slide Rule Calculator of 229 children under 5 with those of 242 children in the project. Malnutrition was studied in 200 children hospitalized in the children's ward of a district hospital, 1/3 of whom were less than 1 year old. Gastroenteritis, giardiasis and amebiasis were prevalent among them (37%), as were upper respiratory infections (27%), pneumonia (12%), and skin infections (7%). Nonspecific gastroenteritis was found in 86% of children under 2. Most over 2 were severely undernourished. A nutritional rehabilitation village called Hutano Village was established in 1982 to function as a nutritional center, staffed by a full-time health worker and an assistant. In the 1st 9 months of its existence, 114 children were taken in, and the mothers received instruction in vegetable gardening, raising chickens and rabbits, hygiene, and family planning. The average attendance runs to 25 children and 15 to 17 mothers. In spite of successful medical intervention in malnutrition cases, the relapse of children into an undernourished state remains a difficult issue, whose cause lies in inadequate water supply, poor soil, lack of resources, and low family socio-economic status.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]