REACH ETHIOPIA

Camelina is a resilient oilseed crop, but its productivity in acidic soils is limited by phosphorus fixation and poor soil fertility. This study examined the combined use of coffee husk biochar and triple superphosphate (TSP) fertilizer to improve soil properties, oil yield, and the nutritional quality of camelina seed cake in the acidic soils of the Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia. A split–split plot design was implemented during the 2024 cropping season using two cultivars (Zeytee-1 and Syria), four TSP rates (0, 23, 46, and 69 kg ha -1 ), and four biochar rates (0, 10, 12, and 14 t ha -1 ). Integrated biochar and TSP application significantly enhanced soil pH, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and cation exchange capacity, with the highest amendment levels increasing available P to 45.3 ppm and CEC to 18.4 cmol kg -1 . Oil content improved with increasing TSP, reaching 45.7% in the Syria cultivar, while biochar reduced peroxide value, indicating better oil stability. Seed cake quality also improved, with crude protein rising to 39.2% and fiber fractions (ADF and NDF) increasing under higher amendment rates. Economic analysis showed that the greatest net benefit was achieved with moderate inputs (23 kg TSP ha -1 and 14 t biochar ha -1 for Syria), highlighting that economic optima differ from maximum yields. Overall, integrating biochar with TSP effectively ameliorated soil acidity, enhanced soil fertility, and improved both the quantity and quality of camelina products, offering a sustainable intensification strategy for acidic agroecosystems.

BackgroundDiabetic ketoacidosis emergencies are serious acute complications of diabetes mellitus, and their health and economic impacts have been increasing among adult diabetic patients. Despite the growing burden of emergencies from diabetic ketoacidosis among adults with diabetes, its outcomes and factors of treatment have not been well studied in Ethiopia.ObjectiveTo assess the prevalence of poor treatment outcomes of diabetic ketoacidosis and associated factors among adult diabetic patients admitted to the Debre Markos comprehensive specialized hospital, northwest Ethiopia.MethodsA hospital-based retrospective cohort study was conducted at Debre Markos comprehensive specialized hospital from April 8, 2025 to April 28, 2025. A total of 360 patients with diabetic DKA who were admitted from August 28, 2019 to September 30, 2024 participated in the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data were extracted using a pre-tested data collection tool adapted from different literatures. The data were entered into epi-data version 4.6.0 and exported to SPSS version 26 for analysis. Both bivariable and multivariable binary logistic regression analysis were done. Statistical significance was declared at a p-value < 0.05 with an odds ratio of 95% confidence interval.ResultsThe prevalence of poor treatment outcomes was 15.5% (95%, CI: 11.5%, 19.3%). Factors, such as severe DKA (AOR: 1.482, 95% CI: 1.324, 4.872), the presence of comorbidities (AOR: 1.752, 95% CI: 1.215, 3.865), and underlying infections (95% CI: 1.362, 4.125), discontinuation of drugs (AOR: 2.115, 95% CI: 1.245, 3.865), treatment complications (AOR: 1.356, 95% CI: 1.253, 4.125), ketone levels > 3 (AOR: 1.213, 95% CI: 1.052, 2.876), and hospital stays of less than 5 days (AOR: 1.29, 95% CI: 1.022, 3.254) were also significant factors associated with poor outcomes in patients with DKA.ConclusionsThis study found that a high number of patients with DKA in the Debre Markos comprehensive specialized hospital experienced poor treatment outcomes. Significant factors included severe DKA, comorbidities, infections, drug discontinuation, treatment complications, high ketone levels and short hospital stays. To improve treatment outcomes, early identification and proactive management of high-risk DKA patients, particularly those who present with severe illness, comorbidity conditions, or infections, shall be prioritized.

Abstract Chromium, a prevalent heavy metal pollutant originating from various industrial processes, poses significant risks if not properly treated. In this study, batch adsorption of hexavalent chromium (Cr 6+ ) from water was performed using activated carbon derived from Cordia africana . This application represents a novel approach, as the use of this material for Cr 6+ removal has not been previously explored. The adsorbent was analyzed through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) methods, revealing its structural and surface properties. Adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-first-order model (R² = 0.99), while the Koble Corrigan isotherm (R² = 0.98) most accurately expressed the adsorption behavior. The adsorption experiments achieved a maximum Cr⁶⁺ adsorption capacity of 52.2 mg/g. Thermodynamic studies indicated that the process is spontaneous and endothermic. Reusability tests demonstrated the stability of the adsorbent over five cycles, with removal efficiencies ranging from 99.7 to 75.1%. Overall, Cordia africana leaf-based activated carbon exhibited a promising adsorption capacity, making it a cost-effective and readily available adsorbent suitable for industrial wastewater treatment.

As World Health Organization reports show more than 1.3 million people die each year from traffic accidents and more than twenty to fifty million people are harmed by non-fatal accidents. Understanding and identifying the major factors of road traffic accidents can help the stakeholders to take appropriate measures to minimize the accidents. Support Vector Machine (SVM), J48, and Naïve Bayes (NB) classification techniques are implemented to build a model that predicts accident severities and to identify road traffic accident factors. As experimental findings showed weather conditions, number of lanes, road lighting conditions, and speed limit are the determinant factors that cause more accident severity. Finally, the classification and prediction performance of the models are compared using various performance evaluation techniques. J48 classifier has better classification performance than Support Vector Machine and Naïve Bayes classifiers. Naïve Bayes is the classifier that showed the lowest performance than others, but it has good performance in classifying fatal accident severities rather than serious and slight accident severities.

ABSTRACTObjectiveIn Ethiopia, a third of the estimated tuberculosis cases are not detected or reported. Incidence estimates are inaccurate and are rarely measured directly. Any tuberculosis program will miss some tuberculosis cases and assessing the ‘‘real’’ incidence under program conditions is useful to understand the situation. This study aimed to measure the prevalence and incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis based on three rounds of household visits in the adult population of Dale in Ethiopia.DesignA prospective population-based cohort study.SettingEvery household in Dale district was visited three times at 4-month interval over 12 months.ParticipantsIndividuals aged 15 and more years were followed.Outcome measuresMicroscopy smear-positive PTB (PTB s+), bacteriologically confirmed PTB (PTB b+) by microscopy, GeneXpert, or culture, and clinically diagnosed PTB (PTB c+).ResultsAmong 136,181 individuals, 2052 had presumptive TB in round1, including 93 with PTB s+, 98 with PTB b+, and 24 with PTB c+; adding those with PTB who were already on treatment, the total number of PTB was 201, and the prevalence was 147 (95%CI: 127–168)/100,000 population. Out of all detected PTB patients by screening, PTB s+ was 65%, PTB b+ was 67%, and PTB c+ was 44%. During 96,388 person-years follow-up after round1 to round3 end, 1909 had presumptive TB, 320 had PTB, and the total incidence of PTB was 332 (95%CI: 297–370)/100,000 person-years, while the incidence of PTB s+, PTB b+, and PTB c+ was 230 (95%CI: 201–262), 263 (95%CI: 232–297), and 68 (95%CI: 53–86)/100,000 person-years, respectively.ConclusionThe prevalence of PTB s+ was similar to the national survey and local studies, but only a third of prevalent PTB cases had been notified. The incidence rate was highest in those aged 25–34 years, indicating ongoing transmission. Finding missing people with TB through repeated screening can reduce transmission.Strengths and limitations of this studyThis study included a large sample and worked closely with the national tuberculosis program and the community structures that contributed to its sustainability.We report not only tuberculosis prevalence but also incidence based on three rounds of household visits, which is often not reported elsewhere.The study screened a very high proportion of households in the district, giving an accurate measure of the burden of tuberculosis, where the probability of missing people with TB is small.Tuberculosis cases notified were chosen the year before the study because we could not separate the patients identified by the screening from those who attended the health services themselves.We did not perform GeneXpert and culture for all smear-positive tuberculosis cases, so there was a difference between microscopy smear-positive and bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis cases, which was very small.

The goal of the study was to see how different land-use systems affected soil physical and chemical properties at Dengawura and Abushura, Harar Gita sub watershed in southern Ethiopia. Ten composites of representative soil samples from two depths (0-20 and 20-40cm) were collected from four land use (enset land, forest land, grassland and Wheatfield). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to determine differences in soil parameters among land-use types. Treatment means comparison was determined using the least significant difference (LSD) at 0.05 levels of significances. The result indicated that there were significant (P &lt; 0.05) differences among the four Land use for soil characteristics. For most parameters evaluated, the most favorable soil properties were observed in the forest land, followed by Enset fields, while the least favorable soil properties were found in intensively wheat fields. Enset (enset Ventricosum) fields had higher pH, available P, Cu and Zn, exchangeable Ca and K which is attributed due to the addition of manure, whereas wheat fields had the lowest pH, available P, Cu and Zn, average K and Mg, cation exchange capacity (CEC), total N and OC. Overall, this study confirms that the use of Land use increases the status of soil fertility and adopting proper management practices of the soil commonly used in enset fields are very crucial to improve soil fertility in wheat fields.

Introductionadolescents are at high risk of engaging in risky sexual behaviours that could predispose them to several health problems. Cognizant of these facts, studies addressing the root causes for risky sexual behaviours in risk areas like Shewa Robit are mandatory. Therefore, the study was conducted to assess risky sexual behaviours and its determinants in Shewa Robit town, Northeast Ethiopia.Methodsan institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 349 students using quantitative and qualitative approaches. For the quantitative study, data entry and analysis was done by using Epidata-3.1 and statistical package for social sciences (SPSS)-20, respectively. Binary and multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with risky sexual practices. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used for measuring the strength of association. Variables with P-value of <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Collected data from the qualitative study was debriefed, categorized, coded and common themes were generated manually. Finally, the findings were triangulated with quantitative findings.Resultsa total of 338 respondents involved in the study. Overall, 168 (49.7%) of respondents have had risky sexual behaviour. Alcohol consumption (Adjusted odd ration (AOR)=5.01, 95%CI; 2.12-11.79), peer pressure (AOR=5.82, 95%CI; 2.97-11.41), grade level (AOR=5.82, 95%CI; 2.06-16.45), and family size (AOR=5.19, 95%CI; 2.24-12.01) were significantly associated with risky sexual behaviour.Conclusionrisky sexual behaviour in the study area was high. Several families and school-level factors were found to be major determinants of risky sexual behaviours. Public health interventions focusing on adolescent sexual health should be targeted to save those risky adolescents.