Introduction: Diabetic complication can be reduced by maintaining good glycemic control. The main goal in diabetic management is achieving good glycemic control because it reduces hospital admission due to diabetic related complication. However, majority of them did not achieve and needs contextual factor identification because the reasons for poor glycemic control in Type 2 diabetes are complex. The objective of this study was to assess the magnitude of poor glycemic control and its associated factors among type 2 diabetic patients at Suhul Hospital, Northwest Tigray, Ethiopia. Methods:Hospital based cross sectional study was conduct on systematically sampled 200 type 2 diabetic patients with regular follow up. Data was collect by interviewing patients during hospital visits and measuring fasting blood glucose at the time of interview at the same time by reviewing the last two month fasting blood glucose results from their chart. Data collection took place from march to april 2014. Good glycemic control was defined as the three month average fasting blood sugar (FBS)<126 mg/dl. Binary logistic regression analysis was conduct to identify predictor of glycemic control.Result: Patients had the mean age of 42.2 ± SD 6.6 years, 68.5% were males, 71.5% were living in urban, 57% had diploma and above educational status, 36.5% achieve good glycemic control, FBS<126 mg/dl, 66% of the patients had <7 year duration of diabetes. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, moderate physical exercise (AOR=2.927, 95% CI=1.335-6.420) taking meal prescribed by their physician appropriately (AOR=2.568, 95% CI=1.222-5.398) and medication adherence (AOR=4.156, 95% CI=1.835-9.409) were factors associated with good glycemic control. Conclusion:This study reveals that the proportion of diabetic patients achieving good glycemic control was low. Moderate physical exercise, taking meal prescribed by their physician appropriately and medication adherence were factors associated with good glycemic control.

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Objective: Antenatal care is the care a pregnant woman receives during her pregnancy through a series of consultations with trained health professionals. Countries with low antenatal care coverage are the countries with very high maternal mortality ratio. One of the important problems which are continuously faced these days is the lack of good quality antenatal care and availing mother's satisfaction. The aim of this study is to assess mother's level of satisfaction with the antenatal care services provided by alganesh health center, north west Tigray, Ethioipia. Across-sectional study was conducted from April-May 2017 at Alganesh health center. Systematic random sampling method was conduct in the study. The collected data were cleaned analysed using SPSS version 20 and presented in tables and figures. Result:The overall satisfaction was 83.9% with different satisfaction level of the variables. Majority (90.8%) of them were satisfied by Examination area cleanliness and 89% were satisfied by Waiting time to see health worker but the pregnant mothers were not satisfied by Waiting area cleanliness and comfort.

Background COVID-19 is a deadly pandemic caused by an RNA virus that belongs to the family of CORONA virus. To counter the COVID-19 pandemic in resource limited settings, it is essential to identify the risk factors of COVID-19 mortality. This study was conducted to identify the social and clinical determinants of mortality in COVID-19 patients hospitalized in four treatment centers of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Methods We reviewed data from 6,637 COVID-19 positive cases that were reported from May 7, 2020 to October 28, 2020. Among these, 925 were admitted to the treatment centers because of their severity and retrospectively analyzed. The data were entered into STATA 16 version for analysis. The descriptive analysis such as median, interquartile range, frequency distribution and percentage were used. Binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify the potential risk factors of mortality of COVID-19 patients. The adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval was used to determine the magnitude of the association between the outcome and predictor variables. Results The median age of the patients was 30 years (IQR, 25–44) and about 70% were male patients. The patients in the non-survivor group were much older than those in the survivor group (median 57.5 years versus 30 years, p-value < 0.001). The overall case fatality rate was 6.1% (95% CI: 4.5% - 7.6%) and was increased to 40.3% (95% CI: 32.2% - 48.4%) among patients with critical and severe illness. The proportions of severe and critical illness in the non-survivor group were significantly higher than those in the survivor group (19.6% versus 5.1% for severe illness and 80.4% versus 4.5% for critical illness, all p-value < 0.001). One or more pre-existing comorbidities were present in 12.5% of the patients: cardiovascular diseases (42.2%), diabetes mellitus (25.0%) and respiratory diseases (16.4%) being the most common comorbidities. The comorbidity rate in the non-survivor group (44.6%) was higher than in the survivor group (10.5%). The results from the multivariable binary regression showed that the odds of mortality was higher for patients who had cardiovascular diseases (AOR = 2.49, 95% CI: 1.03–6.03), shortness of breath (AOR = 9.71, 95% CI: 4.73–19.93) and body weakness (AOR = 3.04, 95% CI: 1.50–6.18). Moreover, the estimated odds of mortality significantly increased with patient’s age. Conclusions Age, cardiovascular diseases, shortness of breath and body weakness were the predictors for mortality of COVID-19 patients. Knowledge of these could lead to better identification of high risk COVID-19 patients and thus allow prioritization to prevent mortality.

Background Food handlers play a significant role in the transmission of foodborne infections. Salmonella and Shigella are the most common foodborne pathogens and their infections are a major public health problem globally. Thus, this study aimed to determine the prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, and associated factors of Salmonella and Shigella colonization among food handlers. Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted from March to August 2018 at Adigrat University student cafeteria, Northern Ethiopia. Data on socio-demographic and associated factors were collected using a structured questionnaire. Fresh stool samples were collected from 301 food handlers and transported to Adigrat University Microbiology Laboratory. Bacterial isolation and antimicrobial susceptibility test were performed using standard bacteriological methods. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 22 and P < 0.05 where a corresponding 95% confidence interval was considered statistically significant. Results A total of 301 food handlers were included in this study. The majority of study participants were females 265 (88.0%). About 22 (7.3%) and 11 (3.7%) of food handlers were found to be positive for Salmonella and Shigella respectively. Hand washing after using a bathroom with water only, no hand washing after using the bathroom, no hand washing after touching dirty materials, no hand washing before food handling, and untrimmed fingernails were significant associated factors identified. None of the Salmonella and Shigella isolates were sensitive to ampicillin, yet low resistance against chloramphenicol, ceftriaxone, and ciprofloxacin was found. Conclusion The present study revealed that the prevalence of Salmonella and Shigella among food handlers was 22 (7.3%) and 11 (3.7%) respectively. Such colonized food handlers can contaminate food, and drinks and could serve as a source of infection to consumers. This indicates that there is a need for strengthened infection control measures to prevent Salmonella and Shigella transmission in the students’ cafeteria.