Mercy Chepkirui

• KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme

Background The traditional use of sealed envelopes for randomisation is susceptible to manipulation and the risk of damage to envelopes during shipping and storage. Additionally, the filling and sealing of envelopes are tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone. Other randomisation alternatives such as web-based methods are preferred. However, they...

The traditional use of sealed envelopes for randomisation is susceptible to manipulation and the risk of damage to envelopes during shipping and at storage. Additionally, the filling and sealing envelopes is, tedious, time-consuming, and error prone. Other randomisation alternatives such as web-based methods are preferred. However, they are expensi...

Background: Malaria prevalence has declined in western Kenya resulting in risk of neurological phenotypes in older children. This study investigates clinical the profile of paediatric malaria admissions ahead of the introduction of RTS,S/AS01 vaccine. Methods: Malaria admissions, aged 1 month to 15 years, were identified from routine standardise...

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) revised its clinical guidelines for management of childhood pneumonia in 2013. Significant delays have occurred during previous introductions of new guidelines into routine clinical practice in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We therefore examined whether providing enhanced audit and feedback...

Background: There is increasing focus on the strength of primary health care systems in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). There are important roles for higher quality district hospital care within these systems. These hospitals are also sources of information of considerable importance to health systems, but this role, as with the wider role...

An audit of randomly selected case records of 810 patients admitted to 13 hospitals between December 2015 and November 2016 was done. Prevalence of dehydration was 19.7% (2293 of 11 636) [95% CI: 17.1-22.6%], range across hospitals was 9.4% to 27.0%. Most cases with dehydration were clinically diagnosed (82 of 153; 53.6%), followed by excessive wei...

Severe anemia is a leading indication for blood transfusion and a major cause of hospital admission and mortality in African children. Failure to initiate blood transfusion rapidly enough contributes to anemia deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. This article examines delays in accessing blood and outcomes in transfused children in Kenyan hospitals. Child...