Incidence and prevalence of epilepsy and associated factors in a health district in North-West Cameroon: A population survey

Very high epilepsy prevalence in rural Southern Rwanda: The underestimated burden of epilepsy in sub‐Saharan Africa

“…In addition to a high prevalence, we observed a treatment gap of 92.2% into the bargain, in line with the gap of 91.5% in Northern rural Rwanda [7]. While the treatment gap exceeds 75% in many reports from low-income countries [30,52,60], our numbers are among the highest published [53,54,56,61,62]. Predominant reasons to explain the gap are limited access to health facilities and a lack of resources, including low supplies, excessive drug costs, or a lack of trained health professionals [51,63,64].…”

“…First, stigma and discrimination of PwE might impede the capture of persons at risk during screening stages resulting in low screening coverage of the eligible population or high attrition between stages [34]. Although some studies report >85% coverage [8,[35][36][37], and adjust prevalence for non-response [8,30,35,[37][38][39], others report coverage of 55% and non-response in up to 52% [30]. Considering our elevated prevalence, 98.2% screening coverage and low attrition, we assume to accurately portray the epilepsy burden in the region.…”

Epilepsy in a health district in North-West Cameroon: Clinical characteristics and treatment gap

“…People with epilepsy were identified through a two-stage epilepsy screening process targeting all permanent residents of the health district (people living in the community for at least the previous three months); this has been discussed in detail elsewhere [17]. In stage 1, household heads were approached by trained nurses and community volunteers.…”

“…From the two-stage epilepsy screening process, 524 people were diagnosed with active epilepsy (17). A further 22 people missed during the screening process were enrolled from the epilepsy clinic of the Batibo Hospital.…”

Epidemiology of epilepsy and relationship with onchocerciasis prevalence in villages of the Ntui Health District of Cameroon

“…In Sub-Saharan Africa specifically, the median epilepsy prevalence is 1.4% [ 4 ]; notwithstanding, epilepsy prevalence rates above 7% have been reported in some communities [ 5 , 6 ]. A previous study found an annual incidence of epilepsy of 171 per 100,000 persons in some areas in Cameroon [ 7 ]. In these areas, the treatment gap reportedly remains high (80%) which is likely related to the high levels of stigma [ 8 , 9 ].…”