Determinants of conventional health service utilization among pastoralists in northeast Ethiopia

Background: Health service utilization pattern among pastoralists in Ethiopia is not well documented. Available data are very few and mostly institution based. Objective: To assess the determinants of conventional health care utilization among pastoralist communities in northeast Ethiopia. Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional household survey conducted using structured questionnaires administered among 276 mobile and 262 settled subjects within the pastoral area. In addition, reviews of outpatient and inpatient records for the previous year at the local health facilities, as well as focus group discussions among the study communities were conducted to supplement the household survey data. Results: Analysis of the collected data revealed steep distance decay in level of health service utilization, in addition to statistically significant difference in the service utilization between the settled and the mobile pastoralist communities (the odd ratio and 95% CI for utilizing health services of settlers over mobile ones were 1.38 (1.138,1.667) with P valu

Trichiasis ercurrence in Nother Ethiopia: a one year prospecitve study of Trachomatous Trichiasis surgery done by integrated eye care workers

No Abstract. Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 22 (1) 2008: pp. 8-1

Detection of equine herpesvirus (EHV) -1, -2, -4 and -5 in Ethiopian equids with and without respiratory problems and genetic characterization of EHV-2 and EHV-5 strains

Infections with equine herpesviruses (EHVs) are widespread in equine popula- tions worldwide. Whereas both EHV-1 and EHV-4 produce well-documented respiratory syndromes in equids, the contribution of EHV-2 and EHV-5 to disease of the respiratory tract is still enigmatic. This study describes the detection and genetic characterization of EHVs from equids with and without clinical respiratory disease. Virus-specific PCRs were used to detect EHV-1, -2, -4 and -5. From the total of 160 equids with respiratory disease, EHV-5 was detected at the highest prevalence (23.1%), followed by EHV-2 (20.0%), EHV-4 (8.1%) and EHV-1 (7.5%). Concurrent infections with EHV-2 and EHV-5 were recorded from nine (5.2%) diseased horses. Of the total of 111 clinically healthy equids, EHV-1 and EHV-4 were never detected whereas EHV-2 and EHV-5 were found in 8 (7.2%) and 18 (16.2%) horses, respec- tively. A significantly higher proportion of EHV-2-infected equids was observed in the respiratory disease group (32/160, 20.0%; P = 0.005) com- pared to those without disease (8/111; 7.2%). EHV-2-positive equids were three times more likely to display clinical signs of respiratory disease than EHV-2-negative equids (OR 3.22, 95% CI: 1.42–7.28). For EHV-5, the observed difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.166). The phyloge- netic analysis of the gB gene revealed that the Ethiopian EHV-2 and EHV-5 strains had a remarkable genetic diversity, with a nucleotide sequence identity among each other that ranged from 94.0 to 99.4% and 95.1 to 100%, respec- tively. Moreover, the nucleotide sequence identity of EHV-2 and EHV-5 with isolates from other countries acquired from GenBank ranged from 92.9 to 99.1% and 95.1 to 99.5%, respectively. Our results suggest that besides EHV- 1 and EHV-4, EHV-2 is likely to be an important contributor either to induce or predispose equids to respiratory disease. However, more work is needed to better understand the contribution of EHV-2 in the establishment of respiratory disease