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such as quality of care and access in Tan-
zania, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Germany
›› Research on the population-based
assessment and monitoring of repro-
ductive morbidity, mortality and use
of health services in Europe
Childhood vaccinations are an important
tool for reducing morbidity and mortality
in developing countries. In recent years,
a number of new and costly vaccinations
have been included or are proposed to be
included into the Extended Programme of
Immunization (EPI) schemes, but it is cur-
rently not clear how this can be effectively
implemented and sustained. Moreover,
routine vaccinations can be associated with
some rare, unspecific and unintentional
effects. A large EU-funded multi-country
research project is currently under way to
look at these issues in a number of African
countries (HIPH PIs Olaf Müller & Heiko
Becher, doctoral student Nobila Ouedraogo).
Disease elimination and eradication remain
globally debated topics. The working group
is addressing aspects of malaria elimination
in Asia, dracunculosis elimination in Ghana
and polio elimination in Nigeria (PI Olaf
Müller).
Childhood malnutrition remains a major
public health problem in SSA, causing up to
half of the under-five mortality. A longitudi-
nal study on the development of childhood
malnutrition and its determinants took
place in the research zone of the Centre de
Recherche en Santé de Nouna (CRSN) in
Nouna health district in north-western Bur-
kina Faso (PI Olaf Müller, doctoral student
Claudia Beiersmann).
Care in pregnancy and child birth is closely
linked to the Millennium Development
Goals (MDG 4 and 5). Effective care cannot
be achieved with a silver bullet approach
based on one specific intervention. Rather,
it requires a functional health system ran-
ging from the community to local first level
facilities and up to the referral hospital.
These levels need to be linked through a re-
ferral system, supportive supervision and a
bi-directional flow of information. Thus, our
research projects in Tanzania and Burkina
Faso pursue a systems approach, based on
a defined and tested health service model
(PI Albrecht Jahn).
Health information on reproductive health
issues is often incomplete and not standar-
dized, hampering planning for appropriate
services as well as limiting the possibilities
to learn from the cross-country comparative
analysis. We are the German partners in
the EU-funded REPROSTAT project, which
aims at standardizing reproductive health
reporting in Europe and address specific
neglected areas such as adolescent repro-
ductive health, abortion, and teenage
pregnancies (PI Albrecht Jahn).
Perspectives of the group:
The members of the working groups plan
to continue working closely together in the
field of applied disease control research
aiming at improving the health of neglected
populations, but will concentrate fully on
infectious diseases in the future.
Doctoral student Maike Tipke investigating the quality of malaria drugs sold on a market in Nouna, Burkina Faso