BackgroundClinical Rabies is a widely distributed almost 100% fatal viral zoonotic disease. Most human rabies cases occur in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. It can be prevented by immunization, post exposure prophylaxis. Ethiopia is assumed to be among African countries with high incidence of human rabies exposure cases. However, there is limited documented data on the incidence of human rabies exposure in the study area in particular and in Ethiopia in general. Thus, this study aimed to determine the Incidence of Human Rabies Virus exposure in Northwestern Amhara, Ethiopia.MethodsRetrospective cross-sectional study was conducted during August and September, 2017. The study was conducted at Addis Alem Hospital, a district level hospital in Bahir Dar. Data on human rabies exposure cases registered from September 1, 2015 to August 31, 2017 were collected from anti-rabies post exposure prophylaxis registration log book. Data was collected using a structured data collection questionnaire developed for this purpose. Descriptive statistics was used to describe relevant variables.The resultsA total of 924 human rabies exposure cases was recorded. The overall human rabies incidence per 100, 000 population was 6.5 in 2015 and 7.5 in 2016. Males (55.2%, 510/924) and children of age less than fifteen (46.3%, 428/924) were most affected groups. The majority of human rabies exposure cases (71.9%, 664/924) were from rural settings. Dogs were the principal sources of exposure (96.3%) followed by cat (1.5%) and donkey (1.3%). High incidence rate of rabies exposure was reported during spring (360, 39%) and summer (244, 26.4%) seasons. There was significant difference between rural and urban exposure cases (p = 0.001) in respect to the time of arrival to the hospital.ConclusionTaking these into account, a significant proportion of the population was exposed to rabies virus during the study years. There was high human rabies exposure rate in children and in the rural community.This shows the need for organizing preventive and control strategies and to build community awareness.

ObjectiveThe aim of this cross-sectional study was to determined the sero-prevalence of HBV infection and associated factors among health care workers and medical waste handlers in primary hospitals of North-west Ethiopia.ResultsA total of 388 study participants were included in this study. Of which, 268 (69%) were health care workers and 120 (31%) were medical waste handlers. Males accounted 54.9% and the mean age for all study participants was 28.3 (standard deviation = 6.9). Hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) was detected in 2.6% health care workers and 2.5% medical waste handlers and the overall hepatitis B virus infection was 10 (2.6%). High rate of hepatitis B virus infection was detected in single participants and those in the age group of 30–40 years were more infected (6.6%). History of contact with HBV infected case (8.3%) (AOR = 6.8, 95% CI = 1.6–28.5, P = 0.009) and history of jaundice (15.4%) (AOR = 10.5, 95% CI = 2.1–12.2, P = 0.03) were statistically associated factors for HBV infection. More than half (54.4%) of the study participants did not take training on infection and 9 (4.3%) of them were positive for HBsAg (COR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.0.02–1.02, P = 0.052).

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes severe liver disease, such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and life-threatening liver disease. Hepatitis B virus infection is one of the most dominant public health problems these days. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of HBV infection among patients attending

Objective: The main aim of this study was to assess the demand of governmental employees for social health insurance and associated factors in Takusa district, Northwest Ethiopia.Methods: Institution-based cross-sectional triangulated with the phenomenological study was conducted. A simple random and a purposive sampling technique were used to recruit 324 employees. Binary logistic regression was performed, and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. In the qualitative study, data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: 61.1% of employees had a good demand for social health insurance. Employees who had 5-6 family sizes were 5.5 times more likely to have a demand for SHI than counterparts. Also, employees who live in a rural area were 3.3 times more likely to have SHI demand than urban residents. In the qualitative analysis, lack of awareness, fear of poor-quality health service provision, the unpreparedness of health institutions, lack of inputs, poverty etc. were the main constraints for the poor demand for SHI. Conclusion: In general, the higher demand for SHI in this study was more than half of the Ethiopians but less than abroad. Therefore, the concerned body shall intervene on the factors by implementing a SHI program cooperatively.

Introduction The lack of local side effect profiles for vaccines could hinder vaccination uptake. Since all COVID-19 vaccines are brand-new medications, it is crucial to keep track of any safety related concern. Objective This study is aimed to investigate post-vaccination side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and associated factors in Bahir Dar city. Method An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among vaccinated clients. A simple random and a systematic random sampling method were used to select the health facilities and the participants, respectively. Bi-variable and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were executed with odds ratio at 95% confidence intervals at p < .05. Results A total of 72(17.4%) participants reported at least one side effect following vaccination. The proportion prevalence was higher after the first dose than that of the second dose and the difference was also found to be statistically significant. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis female participants (AOR = 3.39, 95% CI =  1.53, 7.52), participants with a history of regular medication use (AOR = 3.34, 95% CI  =  1.52, 7.33), participants aged 55 and above (AOR = 2.93, 95% CI  =  1.23, 7.01), and participants who had taken only the first dose (AOR = 14.81, 95% CI  =  6.40, 34.31) were more likely to develop side effects for COVID 19 vaccination compared to their counterparts. Conclusion A significant number (17.4%) of participants reported at least one side effect following vaccination. Sex, medication, occupation, age, and type of vaccination dose were factors statistically associated with the reported side effects.