From Social Determinants of Health Actions to Fight against the Lassa Virus Hemorrhagic Fever Epidemic in Tchaourou Commune in Benin, 2018

Abstract

Background: Lassa Hemorrhagic Fever (LHF) is endemo-epidemic in West Africa with seasonal outbreaks raising a major public health issue. Nigeria borders Benin by the Tchaourou Commune. Since 2016, Tchaourou commune has been affected every year by this epidemic. Objective: To study how an action on the health social determinants can contribute to ending this epidemic in Tchaourou commune, Benin. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Tchaourou commune. All of the cases of LHF occurring in 2016-2018 were retrospectively tracked throughout the commune. The health workers and 172 participants of the general population of villages of the cases were enrolled. We used absolute frequency to describe the LHF cases because of their small number. The descriptive analyses were performed using EPI-INFO 7.1.14. Results: Overall, 27 cases of LHF occurred in Tchaourou. In these 27 cases, 12 were Laboratory-Confirmed. All 4 probable cases died while 42% and 18% died in the confirmed and suspected cases, respectively. Most (75%) of the cases were female. By direct observations, the commune had a weak health-promoting environment for fighting against LHF outbreak. According to the health care staff in the commune, the interventions were for controlling the outbreak and not the promoting interventions to preventing further outbreaks. Conclusion: To fight effectively against the Lassa fever, it is necessary to act on different social determinants of health with community participation, empowerment and health control. The fight against Lassa fever remains a major challenge facing developing countries like Benin.

Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Lessons from the role of community participation in previous vaccination programs

“…CP has been documented in improving community hygiene practices in the prevention of Lassa fever and other infectious diseases. 13 However, paucity of knowledge yet exists on the mechanism behind CP in the context of the COVID-19 vaccine. Given that acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine is a major requirement towards attaining herd immunity against SARS-CoV-2, 14 this perspective aimed to describe how CP could be adopted to promote COVID-19 vaccination acceptance.…”

Community Engagement in the Prevention and Control of Lassa Fever in Africa: A Systematic Review

“…The study pointed evidence to engaging community members in risk communication and stakeholders mobilization. Stakeholders were saddled with the responsibility of discouraging rats' hunting and consumption, bush burningh, and banning cultural norms of cutting parts of a deceased body for prayers [18] . Patassi et al (2017) conducted a case report describing the response to the first two cases of LF infection in Togo in 2016.…”

“…This systematic review across LF-endemic countries presented evidence about the importance of community participation as a component of the disease outbreak response. Community participation is aimed not only at reducing the magnitude of the outbreak, but also at preventing future outbreaks [18] . Despite the lack of sufficient studies to be included in this review, community members were found to play the greatest role in community mobilization towards the prevention and control of LF infection [8,[17][18][19] .…”

“…Community participation is aimed not only at reducing the magnitude of the outbreak, but also at preventing future outbreaks [18] . Despite the lack of sufficient studies to be included in this review, community members were found to play the greatest role in community mobilization towards the prevention and control of LF infection [8,[17][18][19] . This is consistent with the findings of a study describing community mobilization as the collaboration between community stakeholders and members to raise awareness on the health needs, resources, and solutions to meet the challenges in the community [25] .…”

“…However, in order to be more effective, it is necessary to incorporate community sensitization campaigns into community mobilization strategy [12,15] . According to the literature review, it was found that the use of sensitization campaigns could increase community members' awareness of LF [8,[18][19]23] . In the reviewed articles, community members were exposed to media sensitization campaigns.…”