Community awareness about malaria, its treatment and mosquito vector in rural highlands of central Ethiopia

Background: Despite the rapid expansion of malaria into highland areas of Ethiopia and the movement of malaria inexperienced people to endemic areas, there is no enough information about how highland communities perceive malaria.Objective: To assess communities’ awareness of malaria and its mosquito vector in highland rural communities of central Ethiopia.Methods: A community-based cross–sectional survey involved 770 heads of household was conducted during September 2005 to February 2006 in nine peasant associations of five purposely selected districts in highland areas where malaria has been recently introduced, or currently free from the disease.Results: The majority of the study participants knew that malaria is a serious disease that can attack all age groups of a population (81.0%). A considerable number of individuals, 357 (47.5%) responded that they visited malarious area and about 50% of these individuals reported that they or their families had got the disease. A large proportion ofparticipants (81.6%) mentioned that mosquito transmits malaria through biting (91.6%), while 176 (42.6%) individuals are aware that mosquitoes bite during night. Participants from Sheno, Muka Turi and Sululita areas were found to better in associating the cause of malaria with mosquito bites than those participants from Ginchi and Holeta areas (

Sanitary survey of residential areas using Ascaris lumbricoides ova as indicators of environmental hygiene

No Abstract. The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 21 (1) 2007: pp. 18-2

Patterns of MRI Findings in Patients with Chronic Headache: A Retrospective Study from a Private Diagnostic Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Headache is one of the most common complaints that lead the patient to seek medical advice however only a few patients with recurrent headaches have a secondary cause like intracranial mass. The appropriate utilization of neuroimaging is important to rule-out secondary cause of headache in resource-limited regions. The objective of this study is to describe the patterns of MRI findings in the evaluation of patients with chronic headache and to determine the clinical variables helpful in identifying patients with intracranial lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted among 590 selected patients who underwent an MRI scan of the head from September 2016 to January 2018 at Wudassie Diagnostic center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Siemens Magnetom 0.35T MRI was used. RESULTS: Out of 590 patients, 372 (63.1%) were females and 218 (36.9%) were males; 300 (50.8%) patients with the mean age of 38.6 + 0.5 years and a median of 37 + 16.7years have normal brain MRI and 290(49.2%) have abnormal brain MRI reports. The abnormal findings further divided into non-significant findings were 166(28%) that did not alter patient management and clinically significant findings were 124 (21%) which included by decreasing order of frequency tumors, infection, hydrocephalus, hemorrhage, and vascular abnormalities. CONCLUSION: It was 1.3 times higher rate of positive brain MR findings in patients who had headaches plus abnormal neurologic findings as compared to patients without neurologic abnormality (P-value = 0.01).  There is a high rate of significant abnormal MRI findings in this study as compared to studies from developed nations

Human myiasis in an endemic area of Southwestern Ethiopia: Prevalence, knowledge, perceptions and practices

Background: Human subcutaneous myiasis is an endemic, understudied disease in Ethiopia. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess knowledge, perceptions and practices in different urban and rural communities of Jimma Zone, southwestern Ethiopia, related to human myiasis. Method: A cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative study was carried out during March -June 2005 in 5 urban and 3 rural kebeles in Jimma Zone. Kebeles were chosen by random sampling and a total of 1,272 households were selected by systematic random sampling technique for interview. Results: Most subjects (60.0%) mentioned lying on damp soil as the cause of myiasis. More urban than rural communities who wore un-ironed clothes had myiais infestation (p< 0.05). Myiasis was reported to be common in the lower extremities (65.6%), upper extremities (56.7%), abdomen (48.9%) and back (34.9%). A total of 86% dwellers responded that myiasis was more common during the wet season. More than half of the interviewees were knowledgeable about the clinical presentation of the disease. The most common signs and symptoms were itching (94.0%), pus discharge (82.9 %) and papules (79.5%). The majority (87.9%) of the study subjects treated infestations with hot matches. Wearing dry clothes (38.6%) was reported to be effective preventive measure. Nearly 64.8% of the rural and 68.7% of the urban communities knew that human subcutaneous myiasis is preventable. Conclusion: Due to the low levels of knowledge about myiasis, we recommend that community health education programs be developed through the health services to raise the awareness levels about this infestation to the general population.The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 21 (2) 2007: pp. 166-17

Modelling of correlated soil animals count data

Ecological studies naturally result in correlated data. Ignoring these correlations can result in biased estimation of ecological effects jeopardizing the integrity of the scientific inference. Mixed effects models are likely to appeal to ecologists for handling correlated data (e.g. Sileshi, 2008), however careful consideration must be given to the interpretation of the parameter estimates from generalized linear mixed effects models with non-identity link functions. The objective of this study was to compare the generalized estimating equations (GEE) under different correlation structures and suggest appropriate models to describe the relationship between soil animal counts and covariates. The GEE with independence, exchangeable and AR1 correlation structures were compared using count data set of ants from soils under the agroforestry systems in eastern Zambia. The GEE model with AR1 correlation structure gave a better description of the data than did the independence and exchangeable correlation structures.http://www.sastat.org.za/journal.htmam201

Assessing potential locations for flood-based farming using satellite imagery: a case study of Afar region, Ethiopia

The dry lowlands of Ethiopia are seasonally affected by long periods of low rainfall and, coinciding with rainfall in the Amhara highlands, flood waters which flow onto the lowlands resulting in damage to landscapes and settlements. In an attempt to convert water from storm generated floods into productive use, this study proposes a methodology using remote sensing data and geographical information system tools to identify potential sites where flood spreading weirs may be installed and farming systems developed which produce food and fodder for poor rural communities. First, land use land cover maps for the study area were developed using Landsat-8 and MODIS temporal data. Sentinel-1 data at 10 and 20m resolution on a 12-day basis were then used to determine flood prone areas. Slope and drainage maps were derived from Shuttle RADAR Topography Mission Digital Elevation Model at 90m spatial resolution. Accuracy assessment using ground survey data showed that overall accuracies (correctness) of the land use/land cover classes were 86% with kappa 0.82. Coinciding with rainfall in the uplands, March and April are the months with flood events in the short growing season (belg) and June, July and August have flood events during the major (meher) season. In the Afar region, there is potentially >0.55m ha land available for development using seasonal flood waters from belg or meher seasons. During the 4 years of monitoring (2015–2018), a minimum of 142,000 and 172,000 ha of land were flooded in the belg and meher seasons, respectively. The dominant flooded areas were found in slope classes of <2% with spatial coverage varying across the districts. We concluded that Afar has a huge potential for flood-based technology implementation and recommend further investigation into the investments needed to support new socio-economic opportunities and implications for the local agro-pastoral communities

Facilitating livelihoods diversification through flood-based land restoration in pastoral systems of Afar, Ethiopia

The pastoral systems of Eastern Africa have been affected by the alternated incidence of recurrent drought and flood for the last decades, aggravating poverty and local conflicts. We have introduced an innovation to convert floods to productive use using water spreading weirs (WSW) as an entry point to capture and spread the torrential flood emerging in the neighbouring highlands into rangelands and crop fields of low-lying pastoral systems in Afar, Ethiopia. The productivity and landscape feature have changed from an abandoned field to a productive landscape within 3 years of intervention. The flood patterns and sediment loads created at least four different crop management zones and productivity levels. Based on moisture and nutrient regimes, we developed land suitability maps for integrating crops and forages fitting to specific niches. The outcome was a fast recovery of landscapes, with 150% biomass yield increment, increased access to dry season feed and food. These positive outcomes could be attributed to the proper design of weirs, joint planning and execution between pastoralists, researchers and development agents, identification and availing best-fitting varieties for each management zone and developing simple GIS-based parcel level maps to guide development agents and pastoralists. The major ‘agents’ were community leaders (‘Kedoh Abbobati’) who keenly debated potential benefits and drawbacks of innovations, enforced customary rules and byelaw and suggested changes in approaches and choices of interventions. In general, an innovation system approach helped to create local confidence, attract attention of government institutions and helped local actors to identify investment areas, develop implementation strategies to increase productivity, define changes as it occurs and minimize conflicts between competing communities. However, the risk of de facto use of a plot of communal land translating into long-term occupation and ownership may be impacting a communal territory and social cohesion that was subject to other collective choice customary rules