The role of tourism activities on poverty alleviation in Unguja, Zanzibar

This study examines the roles of tourism activities on poverty alleviation in Unguja, Zanzibar. Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in Zanzibar. Its rapid expansion has been considered as an interesting possibility for poverty reduction. Tourism becomes a significant industry in both poor and rich economies because of its important impacts on economic, livelihoods and socio-cultural development. Zanzibar currently is a poor country, but it has a glorious tourist attraction and will have a glorious economy too if steps are taken in the right direction. One of the sectors where this country has a great future is tourism, which can play a very important role to alleviate poverty in rural areas. It is obvious that tourism development has the potential of directly contributing to poverty reduction through, among other things, the provision of employment opportunities to local people as well as creation of markets for locally made goods. The study adopts descriptive research design. The data were collected through Questionnaire, Interview and Observation methods, while Qualitative and Quantitative data analysis approach was applied. The study findings and analysis showed that tourism activities had contributed immensely in improving the general welfare of the local people through increased income. It has also reduced income poverty by increasing local purchasing power. On the other hand, the price of the commodities has increased due to the development of tourism and address some challenges faced poverty alleviation through tourism such as lack of credits, lack of awareness on how to invest in tourism, lack of qualification to work in the tourist hotel and ineffective local authorities. Finally, this study has come up with some factors addressing the challenges facing tourism in poverty alleviation in the local communities

The detection of Schistosoma bovis in livestock on Pemba Island, Zanzibar: a preliminary study

Schistosoma bovis is a parasitic trematode of ungulates transmitted by freshwater snails in Sub-Saharan Africa causing bovine intestinal schistosomiasis that leads to chronic morbidity and significant agricultural economic losses. The recently reported occurrence of Bulinus globosus infected with S. bovis for the first time on Pemba Island (Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania) is a cause of concern for livestock/wildlife health and complicates the surveillance of Schistosoma haematobium. To confirm that local cattle are infected with S. bovis, fresh faecal samples were collected from six adult cows surrounding two schistosomiasis transmission sites in Kinyasini, Pemba Island. Schistosome eggs were concentrated, egg hatching stimulated and miracidia were individually captured and identified by analysis of the partial mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and the partial nuclear internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1+5.8S+ITS2). Two S. bovis miracidia were collected from one faecal sample with two cox1 haplotypes, one matching cox1 data obtained from S. bovis cercariae, collected previously at the same site in Pemba, the other matching S. bovis cox1 data originating from coastal Tanzania. The findings conclude that S. bovis transmission has been established on Pemba Island and is likely to have been imported through livestock trade with East Africa. Increasing the sensitivity of non-invasive diagnostics for bovine schistosomiasis, together with wider sampling, will enable a better assessment on the epidemiology of S. bovis on Pemba Island

Comparison of Prescribed from Delivered Dose to Cancer of Cervix Patients Treated by Theratron Equinox 80 cm Source-to-Axis Distance (SAD) Technique at Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Tanzania

The aim of the present study was to investigate deviations between prescribed from delivered dose for cervical cancer patients treated at Ocean Road Cancer Institute using Equinox 80 Tele-cobalt machine. In this work, anterior-posterior (AP) and posterior anterior (PA) fields using Source-to-Axis Distance (SAD) technique was used. Measurements of entrance doses were taken using calibrated diode detector in three groups of patients. In group 1, only 15 patients out of 31 curative intent patients received doses lower than ± 5% of 2 Gy as compared to the prescribed dose. In group 2, 1 measurement was done for 9 patients who received palliative single dose of 10 Gy and 2 patients out of 9 received doses within the range of ± 5% of the prescribed dose. In group 3, 1 daily measurement was done for 12 patients who were prescribed a curative dose of 50 Gy in 25 fractions. The maximum observed deviation was + 25.08%, while that of minimum was – 0.59%. Since significant deviations between prescribed and delivered doses exist, there is a need to conduct another study using both patient and machine related factors to refine the problem of high dose deviations among the patients. Keywords: Tele-cobalt machine; in-vivo dosimetry; measured and delivered dose; cervical cancer; diode detecto

Advantages of 3D-CT Based Conformal Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Over 2D Conventional Tera Six Planning for Cervical Cancer Treatment at Ocean Road Cancer Institute

Although External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT) is essential tool for the radiation therapy of cervical cancer; only one cancer institute in Tanzania performs 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiation Therapy (3DCRT) Computed Tomography (CT)-based planning. To identify benefits and advantages of 3D-CRT over 2D- conventional radiation therapy (2D-CRT), dosimetric parameters for tumor targets and organs at risk (OARs) were compared between these modalities for 23 cervical cancer patients. 11 cervical cancer patients were CT scanned after proper positioning and immobilization and transferred to Eclipse Treatment Planning System (TPS) for dose planning. The remaining 12 curative intent patients were planned using 2D-CRT system and treatment times were calculated for each patient. From the CT based planning, the minimum dose (D min), maximum dose (D max) and mean dose (D mean) to Planning Target Volume (PTV) and organs at risk (OAR), were compared for each plan. On average, the optimized maximum doses for bladder, rectum, femoral heads, PTV and Gross Tumor Volume (GTV) were 46.56 Gy, 42.65 Gy, 28.76 Gy, 48.56 Gy and 48.53 Gy. For 2D-concentional planning, the dose rate was 75.75 cGy/min and the average treatment time was 1.6075 minutes. This study confirms that 3D CT-based planning is a good choice in the treatment protocol for carcinoma cervix as it delivered a highly homogeneous and conformal plan with superior dose coverage to PTV and better OARs sparing

Development of a Molecular Snail Xenomonitoring Assay to Detect Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma bovis Infections in their Bulinus Snail Hosts.

Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease of medical and veterinary importance, transmitted through specific freshwater snail intermediate hosts, is targeted for elimination in several endemic regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Multi-disciplinary methods are required for both human and environmental diagnostics to certify schistosomiasis elimination when eventually reached. Molecular xenomonitoring protocols, a DNA-based detection method for screening disease vectors, have been developed and trialed for parasites transmitted by hematophagous insects, such as filarial worms and trypanosomes, yet few have been extensively trialed or proven reliable for the intermediate host snails transmitting schistosomes. Here, previously published universal and Schistosoma-specific internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA primers were adapted into a triplex PCR primer assay that allowed for simple, robust, and rapid detection of Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma bovis in Bulinus snails. We showed this two-step protocol could sensitively detect DNA of a single larval schistosome from experimentally infected snails and demonstrate its functionality for detecting S. haematobium infections in wild-caught snails from Zanzibar. Such surveillance tools are a necessity for succeeding in and certifying the 2030 control and elimination goals set by the World Health Organization

Hospital Based Cancer Statistics as an Initial Step towards Establishment of Effective Cancer Intervention in Tanzania

There is an increasing public awareness that cancer in terms of increasing incidence rates and low curability become a serious problem in Tanzania. Due to limited human and physical resources in Tanzania, cancer interventions that address high incidences, curability and socio-economic impact must be given top priority. This information is often obtained in Population Based Cancer Registry (PBCR) which is not only lacking in Tanzania but its production requires relatively long period of follow-up and high cost of registration. Since establishment of effective cancer intervention is urgent, the desired information needed to accord this priority has been obtained from Hospital Based Cancer Statistics at Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI). From this study, it was found that interventions of cancer of the cervix, breast, kaposi sarcoma, esophageal and head and neck has to be given high priority. It was also observed that treatment outcome for cervical cancer patients of all stages ranged between 34.2 % and 39.1% in the year 2010 and 2015 respectively. Using incidence, curability and socio-economic indices, the cancer type which require effective intervention are cancer of the cervix, breast and kaposi sarcoma. Implicitly, in the low cure rate of each detected cervical cancer in Tanzania compared to high cure rate reported in developed countries, early detection interventions and dose delivery accuracy should be improved

Occurrence of Schistosoma bovis on Pemba Island, Zanzibar: implications for urogenital schistosomiasis transmission monitoring - CORRIGENDUM (vol 145, pg 1727, 2018)

Copyright: © Cambridge University Press 2018 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article

Verification of Depth Dose Curves Derived on Beeswax, Paraffin and Water Phantoms Using FLUKA Monte Carlo Code

This study aimed on the investigation of depth dose curves from beeswax, water and paraffinphantoms using FLUKA Monte Carlo code. In order to test the validity of FLUKA code,computational values of depth doses in water, beeswax and paraffin have been obtained using thiscode. The relative average coefficient of variation of percentage depth dose was observed to beless than 0.38% between beeswax and water, below 0.2% between water and paraffin and 0.98%between beeswax and British Journal of Radiology supplement 25 data. The deviations ofpercentage depth doses within the beeswax phantom material were also calculated and it wasconcluded that, among the treatment fields, the average coefficient of variation was about 0.74%for 7 × 7 cm2 and 1.23% for 20 × 20 cm2. The minor deviation in percentage depth dose obtainedin this work demonstrates that beeswax phantom has a potential to provide a better alternativematerial for dose calculations, and hence can be used as substitute material for in-vivo dosimetry inexternal beam radiation therapy using Theratron Equinox 80 Cobalt-60 unit. Keywords: FLUKA; Monte Carlo code; beeswax; percentage depth dose; phantom

Transmission and diversity of Schistosoma haematobium and S. bovis and their freshwater intermediate snail hosts Bulinus globosus and B. nasutus in the Zanzibar Archipelago, United Republic of Tanzania

Funding: The study was partially funded by a Wellcome Trust Seed Award (https://wellcome.org) grant number 207728 (awarded to BLW). TP was funded by the NERC GW4+ DTP (https://www.nercgw4plus.ac.uk) and the Natural Environmental Research Council (https://www.nerc.com), number NE/L002434/1. Data and samples from the ZEST project were also used in the current study, ZEST was funded by the University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc., which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (https://www. gatesfoundation.org/) for the Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation (SCORE; https://score.uga.edu/) projects (prime award no. 50816, subaward no. RR374-053/4893206 to DR). FA, AE and MR were funded by the Wellcome Trust (https://wellcome.org), for the SCAN: Schistosomiasis Collection at the Natural History Museum, grant number 104958/Z/14/Z, in which many of the ZEST samples were accessioned.Background The Zanzibar Archipelago (Pemba and Unguja islands) is targeted for the elimination of human urogenital schistosomiasis caused by infection with Schistosoma haematobium where the intermediate snail host is Bulinus globosus. Following multiple studies, it has remained unclear if B. nasutus (a snail species that occupies geographically distinct regions on the Archipelago) is involved in S. haematobium transmission on Zanzibar. Additionally, S. haematobium was thought to be the only Schistosoma species present on the Zanzibar Archipelago until the sympatric transmission of S. bovis, a parasite of ruminants, was recently identified. Here we re-assess the epidemiology of schistosomiasis on Pemba and Unguja together with the role and genetic diversity of the Bulinus spp. involved in transmission. Methodology/Principal findings Malacological and parasitological surveys were conducted between 2016 and 2019. In total, 11,116 Bulinus spp. snails were collected from 65 of 112 freshwater bodies surveyed. Bulinus species identification were determined using mitochondrial cox1 sequences for a representative subset of collected Bulinus (n = 504) and together with archived museum specimens (n = 6), 433 B. globosus and 77 B. nasutus were identified. Phylogenetic analysis of cox1 haplotypes revealed three distinct populations of B. globosus, two with an overlapping distribution on Pemba and one on Unguja. For B. nasutus, only a single clade with matching haplotypes was observed across the islands and included reference sequences from Kenya. Schistosoma haematobium cercariae (n = 158) were identified from 12 infected B. globosus and one B. nasutus collected between 2016 and 2019 in Pemba, and cercariae originating from 69 Bulinus spp. archived in museum collections. Schistosoma bovis cercariae (n = 21) were identified from seven additional B. globosus collected between 2016 and 2019 in Pemba. By analysing a partial mitochondrial cox1 region and the nuclear ITS (1–5.8S-2) rDNA region of Schistosoma cercariae, we identified 18 S. haematobium and three S. bovis haplotypes representing populations associated with mainland Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands (Zanzibar, Madagascar, Mauritius and Mafia). Conclusions/Significance The individual B. nasutus on Pemba infected with S. haematobium demonstrates that B. nasutus could also play a role in the local transmission of S. haematobium. We provide preliminary evidence that intraspecific variability of S. haematobium on Pemba may increase the transmission potential of S. haematobium locally due to the expanded intermediate host range, and that the presence of S. bovis complicates the environmental surveillance of schistosome infections.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe