scholarly journals Prioritizing the Scale-Up of Evidence-Based Nutrition and Health Interventions to Accelerate Stunting Reduction in Ethiopia

Nutrients ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaleab Baye
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Complementary Feeding ◽  
Zinc Supplementation ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Universal Coverage ◽  
Wealth Quintile ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Lives Saved Tool

Despite some progress, stunting prevalence in many African countries including Ethiopia remains unacceptably high. This study aimed to identify key interventions that, if implemented at scale through the health sector in Ethiopia, can avert the highest number of stunting cases. Using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST), the number of stunting cases that would have been averted, if proven interventions were scaled-up to the highest wealth quintile or to an aspirational 90% coverage was considered. Stunting prevalence was highest among rural residents and households in the poorest wealth quintile. Coverage of breastfeeding promotion and vitamin A supplementation were relatively high (>50%), whereas interventions targeting women were limited in number and had particularly low coverage. Universal coverage (90%) of optimal complementary feeding, preventive zinc supplementation, and water connection in homes could have each averted 380,000–500,000 cases of stunting. Increasing coverage of water connection to homes to the level of the wealthiest quintile could have averted an estimated 168,000 cases of stunting. Increasing coverage of optimal complementary feeding, preventive zinc supplementation, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services is critical. Innovations in program delivery and health systems governance are required to effectively reach women, remote areas, rural communities, and the poorest proportion of the population to accelerate stunting reduction.

scholarly journals Health evaluations in Africa – A review of the health strand held at the 7th Biennial Conference of the African Evaluation Association

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edna Berhane
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources For Health ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Biennial Conference ◽  
Sub Saharan

Although Africa has made significant progress in public health over the past several decades, it still faces a very high burden of disease compared to the rest of the world. This overwhelming disease burden is further aggravated by a lack of adequate financial and human resources for health, inequitable distribution of health services, and other social, economic and political factors. Given these constraints, it has become critical for African countries to ensure that health interventions are selected based on evidence and implemented efficiently and effectively to ensure desired outcomes and impact. This has led to an increasing appreciation for monitoring and evaluation as an integral element of programme planning, implementation and scale-up. The importance of M&E within the health sector was recently reflected in the fact that the health evaluation strand was the largest at AfrEA’s 7th Biennial International Conference, held over 3 days in March 2014 in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The health strand, which had nine sub-themes, was sponsored, managed, and supported by the USAID-funded AfricanStrategies for Health (ASH) project. This review summarises the health strand presentations, and panel and roundtable discussions. The evaluations featured in the strand were diverse interms of health area focus, evaluation methodology, language and authors’ affiliation. More than 21 African countries from all regions of sub-Saharan Africa were represented. Among thekey recurrent messages highlighted during the conference were the importance of: data use for planning and improving health programmes, data quality, well-functioning M&E systems and identifying and sharing best/good practices.

scholarly journals Dracunculus medinensis (Guinea Worm Disease) Elimination and Eradication and the Challenges of Emerging Non-human Animal Hosts: A Review of the Literature

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
M. O. Elom
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Water Sources ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Farm Work ◽  
Guinea Worm ◽  
Drinking Water Sources ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Google Search

The objective of the review is to update information on the recent state of the transmission of dracunculiasis. Dracunculiasis is an ancient debilitating disease that has been lingering among dwellers of rural communities in some neglected sub-tropical and tropical countries. The disease is transmitted through drinking water that has been infested with Cyclops, the intermediate host of D. medinensis. Guinea worm disease has neither medicine for cure nor vaccine for prevention but can be prevented using certain intervention strategies. Any person that lives in the affected localities and drinks from Cyclop-infested water bodies could be infected, irrespective of age, gender or social status. The disease cripples the economy of affected communities, as it reduces attendance to farm work and other occupations and renders students absent from schools, through incapacitation. Eradication of dracunculiasis has been targeted using health education, boiling of water before drinking, application of temephos (Abate) to drinking water sources, filtration of water before drinking and installation of boreholes for the endemic localities. Attempts for eradication of dracunculiasis had reached an impressive and significant level before the emergence of cases of non-human animal infections. This phenomenon has sustained transmission of the disease in a few African countries. Published articles in Pubmed, Medline, Google Scholar and DOAJ on Guinea worm elimination and eradication and those on animal infections with Guinea worm were reviewed using Google search engine between February and April 2020. Scale up of application of Abate to affected drinking water sources is recommended as the most reliable and sustainable intervention in highly neglected communities.

scholarly journals Road Maintenance in Africa: Approaches and Perspectives

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Mostafa Hassan M
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Operating Costs ◽  
Road Maintenance ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Over Time

In Africa, roads are the dominant mode of passenger and freight transport, for which the need is growing rapidly. It is noticeable that most of the African countries do not do enough to ensure the sustainability of road infrastructure as it has been widely reported that roads are affected, to varying degrees, by premature deterioration. Most of the African countries have adopted institutional reforms, notably entailing the creation of road funds and road agencies, and made significant progress on road maintenance. However, many challenges remain to be addressed in all of them to ensure appropriate maintenance. Although spending on road maintenance has increased over time in all African countries it remains insufficient to cover the needs. Poorly maintained roads constrain mobility, significantly raise vehicle operating costs, increase accident rates and their associated human and property costs, and aggravate isolation, poverty, poor health, and illiteracy in rural communities. This paper focuses, in particular, on road maintenance in some African countries considering types of road maintenance and the different approaches aiming at a comparison to reflect on similarities and differences.

The Potential Contribution of the Health System to Reducing Stunting in SUN Countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 037957212199812
Author(s):  
Talata Sawadogo-Lewis ◽  
Shannon E. King ◽  
Tricia Aung ◽  
Timothy Roberton
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
Universal Coverage ◽  
Reproductive Age ◽  
World Health ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Nutrition Interventions ◽  
Lives Saved Tool ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Nutrition Sensitive ◽  
Global Nutrition

Background: The global nutrition community has called for a multisectoral approach to improve nutritional outcomes. While most essential nutrition interventions are delivered through the health system, nutrition-sensitive interventions from other sectors are critical. Objective: We modeled the potential impact that Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) interventions delivered by the health system would have on reaching World Health Assembly (WHA) stunting targets. We also included results for targets 2, 3, and 5. Methods: Using all available countries enrolled in the SUN movement, we identified nutrition interventions that are delivered by the health system available in the Lives Saved Tool. We then scaled these interventions linearly from 2012 up to nearly universal coverage (90%) in 2025 and estimated the potential impact that this increase would have with regard to the WHA targets. Results: Our results show that only 16 countries out of 56 would reach the 40% reduction in the number of stunted children by 2025, with a combined total reduction of 32% across all countries. Similarly, only 2 countries would achieve the 50% reduction in anemia for women of reproductive age, 41 countries would reach at least 50% exclusive breastfeeding in children under 6 months of age, and 0 countries would reach the 30% reduction in low birth weight. Conclusions: While the health system has an important role to play in the delivery of health interventions, focusing investments and efforts on the health system alone will not allow countries to reach the WHA targets by 2025. Concerted efforts across multiple sectors are necessary.

scholarly journals Achieving Sustainable Energy in Rural Communities in Ghana

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Kwabena Boafo Adom-Opare ◽  
Daniel Kweku Baah Inkoom
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Energy Resource ◽  
High Growth ◽  
Water Evaporation ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Fuel Wood ◽  
Industrial Energy

The paper uses a range of sustainability-measuring indicators to define and measure sustainable energy in a rural context. The use of fuel wood and charcoal in rural areas has consequences on the environment and human health and ultimately, climate change. Fuel wood and charcoal consumption for example pose threats in through carbon emissions. Though Ghana and most African countries are not heavy carbon emitters, it is important to recognize that fuel wood and charcoal are major sources of residential and industrial energy resource. From the study, it was estimated that household and industrial/commercial fuel wood and charcoal consumption, emitted 24,171 tCO2/year and the net carbon capture was about 112billion tCO2/year. The balance between carbon emitted and capture provides an indication of more room for carbon sequestration in the area and its environs; however high growth in fuel consumption coupled with increasing forest reduction and water evaporation (refer to section 4.6.3 on data on evaporation) presents a case for concern over the years.

Infrastructure Provisioning and Health Service Utilization in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amm Quamruzzaman
Keyword(s):  
Health Service ◽  
Service Utilization ◽  
Health Service Utilization ◽  
Access To Health Care ◽  
National Level ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Local Health ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Different Levels

Although the positive developmental effects of infrastructure provisioning are well documented, research on the potential role of governance in the improvement of infrastructure performance and individual-level service utilization is lacking. I explore the effect of infrastructure provisioning on individual-level health service utilization, paying close attention to whether governance at different levels shapes people's access to health care. The different geographical levels of infrastructure provisioning, governance, and health service utilization require a multilevel analysis, which I perform using Afrobarometer Round 5 survey data on 34 African countries in a three-stage mixed-effects modeling. Results show that the presence of health infrastructure is crucial for enhancing people's health service utilization. However, people encounter certain problems when receiving services at their local health clinics or hospitals, and these problems are directly linked with governance in the health sector as well as overall governance at the country level. Improvements in people's health service utilization therefore require both better infrastructure provisioning and better governance at different levels, as the former does not guarantee the latter. Development scholars need to widen their focus beyond national-level governance and help policy makers identify at which level state interventions are most needed for removing barriers to development.

scholarly journals Development and scale-up of bioprotectants to keep staple foods safe from aflatoxin contamination in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 587-628
Author(s):  
Ranajit Bandyopadhyay ◽  
◽  
Alejandro Ortega-Beltran ◽  
Matieyedou Konlambigue ◽  
Lawrence Kaptoge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aflatoxin Contamination ◽  
Barriers To Adoption ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Significant Public Health ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Staple Foods

Aflatoxins pose a significant public health risk, decrease productivity and profitability and hamper trade. To minimize aflatoxin contamination a biocontrol technology based on atoxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus that do not produce aflatoxin is used widely in the United States. The technology, with the generic name Aflasafe, has been improved and adapted for use in Africa. Aflasafe products have been developed or are currently being developed in 20 African countries. Aflatoxin biocontrol is being scaled up for use in several African countries through a mix of public, private, and public-private interventions. Farmers in several countries have commercially treated nearly 400,000 ha of maize and groundnut achieving >90% reduction in aflatoxin contamination. This chapter summarizes the biology of aflatoxin-producing fungi and various factors affecting their occurence, including climate change. Various management practices for aflatoxin mitigation are then discussed. These include biological control, which is increasingly being adopted by farmers in several countries. We discuss biocontrol product development and commercialization in various African countries. Subsequently, we highlight some barriers to adoption and other challenges.

scholarly journals Use, awareness and willingness to self-test for HIV: An analysis of cross-sectional population-based surveys in Malawi and Zimbabwe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Case Johnson ◽  
Melissa Neuman ◽  
Peter MacPherson ◽  
Augustine Choko ◽  
Caitlin Quinn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Sociodemographic Factors ◽  
Population Based ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Self Test ◽  
Result Analysis

Abstract Background Many southern African countries are nearing the global goal to diagnose 90% of people with HIV by 2020. In 2016, 84% and 86% of people with HIV knew their status in Malawi and Zimbabwe respectively. Despite this progress, gaps remain, particularly among men (≥25 years). We investigated awareness, use and willingness to HIV self-test (HIVST) prior to large scale implementation and explored sociodemographic associations. Methods We pooled responses from two of the first cross-sectional Demographic Health Surveys to include HIVST questions: Malawi and Zimbabwe in 2015-16. Sociodemographic factors and sexual risk behaviours associated with previously testing for HIV, and awareness, past use and future willingness to self-test were investigated using univariable and multivariable logistic regression, adjusting for the sample design and limiting analysis to participants with completed questionnaire and a valid HIV result. Analysis of willingness to self-test was restricted to Zimbabwean men, as Malawians and women were not asked this question. Results Of 31 385 individuals, the proportion never-tested was higher for men (31.2%) than women (16.5%), p<0.001. For men, having ever tested increased with age. Past use and awareness of HIVST was very low, 1.2% and 12.6% respectively. Awareness was lower among women than men (9.1% vs 15.3%, adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=1.55; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.37-1.75), and at younger ages, and lower education and literacy levels. Willingness to self-test among Zimbabwean men was high (84.5%), with having previously tested for HIV, high sexual risk, and being ≥25 years associated with greater willingness. Wealthier men had greater awareness of HIVST than poorer men (p<0.001). Men at higher HIV-related sexual risk, compared to men at lower HIV-related sexual risk, had the greatest willingness to self-test (aOR=3.74; 95%CI: 1.39-10.03, p<0.009).Conclusions In 2015-16 many Malawian and Zimbabwean men had never tested for HIV. Despite low awareness and minimal HIVST experience at that time, willingness to self-test was high among Zimbabwean men, especially in older men with moderate to high HIV-related sexual risk. These data provide a valuable baseline against which to investigate population-level uptake of HIVST as programmes scale-up. Programmes introducing, or planning to introduce HIVST, should consider including questions in population-based surveys.

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