SMOKING AND CHILDREN

A study from the Netherlands has shown that questionnaire reports are an inexpensive and valid estimate of residential exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) among preschool and school children. Between January 2002 and May 2003 the authors visited 335 Dutch households, 347 in Germany, and 354 in Sweden to measure air nicotine concentrations and to administer the questionnaires related to smoking. Urinary cotinine concentrations were compared with questionnaire reported smoking in 307 German children. Air nicotine concentrations increased with increasing questionnaire reported smoking in a dose-response manner; similar results were found for the agreement of urinary cotinine concentrations. (

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MALARIA IN CHILDREN IN THE UK

The incidence of malaria in the United Kingdom has begun to decline but a considerable number of children are still being diagnosed with the disease. Between January 1999 and December 2003, 9238 cases of malaria were reported to the Malaria Reference Laboratory, of which 1456 were in children. Almost half the children with malaria were born in Africa—mainly Nigeria (43%), Ghana (16.1%), or Uganda (8.8%). Malaria prophylaxis had not been taken by 303 of 500 children for whom this information was available. …