Despite the enormous progress made in the advancement of health technologies over the last century, infectious diseases continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Neglected diseases are a subset of infectious diseases that lack treatments that are effective, simple to use, or affordable. Neglected diseases primarily affect populations in poor countries that do not constitute a lucrative market sector, thus failing to provide incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to conduct R&D for these diseases. Of the treatments that (...) do exist for neglected diseases, most are completely out-dated, with poor side-effect profiles, cumbersome logistics of administration, and inadequate efficacy. Historically, the impetus for a majority of neglected disease research was driven by early 20th-century colonialism, and in the post-colonial era, these diseases have been virtually ignored. Of the 1556 New Chemical Entities brought to market during the 30-year period from 1975 to 2004, only 20 — less than 0.02% — were for neglected diseases. (shrink)

Recent advances in immunology have provided a foundation of knowledge to understand many of the intricacies involved in manipulating the human response to fight parasitic infections, and a great deal has been learned from malaria vaccine efforts regarding strategies for developing parasite vaccines. There has been some encouraging progress in the development of a Chagas vaccine in animal models. A prize fund for Chagas could be instrumental in ensuring that these efforts are translated into products that benefit patients.

IntroductionThe National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines acknowledge the importance of the parent–infant relationship for child development but highlight the need for further research to establish reliable tools for assessment, particularly for parents of children under 1 year. This study explores the acceptability and psychometric properties of a co-developed tool, ‘Me and My Baby’.Study designA cross-sectional design was applied. The MaMB was administered universally with mothers during routine 6–8-week Health Visitor contacts. The sample comprised 467 mothers. Dimensionality of (...) instrument responses were evaluated via exploratory and confirmatory ordinal factor analyses. Item response modeling was conducted via a Rasch calibration to evaluate how the tool conformed to principles of ‘fundamental measurement’. Tool acceptability was evaluated via completion rates and comparing ‘completers’ and ‘non-completers’ demographic differences on age, parity, ethnicity, and English as an additional language. Free-text comments were summarized. Data sharing agreements and data management were compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation, and University of York data management policies.ResultsHigh completion rates suggested the MaMB was acceptable. Psychometric analyses showed the response data to be an excellent fit to a unidimensional confirmatory factor analytic model. All items loaded statistically significantly and substantially on a single underlying factor. The item response modeling showed that most MaMB items fitted the Rasch model. item reliability was high yet the test yielded little information on each respondent, as highlighted by the relatively low ‘person separation index’ of 0.1.Conclusion and next stepsMaMB reliably measures a single construct, likely to be infant bonding. However, further validation work is needed, preferably with ‘enriched population samples’ to include higher-need/risk families. The MaMB tool may benefit from reduced response categories and some modest item wording amendments. Following further validation and reliability appraisal the MaMB may ultimately be used with fathers/other primary caregivers and be potentially useful in research, universal health settings as part of a referral pathway, and clinical practice, to identify dyads in need of additional support/interventions. (shrink)