COMMERCIAL DRINKING WATER QUALITY AND SAFETY IN BO CITY, SIERRA LEONE

Many people who lack reliable access to a quality and safe drinking water source in or near the home rely on commercial drinking water products, such as machine-filled sachet water, that may be of variable quality.A participatory geographic information system was used in conjunction with distribution point and vendor census in the study area to identify a total of 36 water sources across Bo city that  are used for commercial water production.  These include 6 water sources and the production facilities for 10 brands of machine-filled factory-produced water sachets as well as the 10 sources and finished samples for 10hand-tied plastic-bagged water producers. Water samples from all 16 water sources and 20 commercial water products purchased from randomly-selected retail outlets and street vendors were tested for microbiological and physicochemical properties. Workers at all of these facilities were also interviewed about their knowledge and practices.All of the machine-filled sachet waters were free of microbial contamination, but several of the hand- tied water sachets, all filled from unlined local wells, and had coliform bacteria.  Both machine-filled sachet water and hand-tied sachet water had pH levels that were below the World Health Organization’s recommended range. Water with acidic pH can cause corrosion of the metal pipes used with wells and can release those potentially harmful minerals into drinking water. Water factory workers used a variety of water treatment methods to purify their products; hand-tied sachets generally used only cloth filters to purify the water and often stored water in open containers. Improved quality of commercial water products would improve health in Sierra Leone.

Enabling methods for community health mapping in developing countries

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Spatial epidemiology is useful but difficult to apply in developing countries due to the low availability of digitized maps and address systems, accurate population distributions, and computational tools. A community-based mapping approach was used to demonstrate that participatory geographic information system (PGIS) techniques can provide information helpful for health and community development.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The PGIS process allowed for the rapid determination of sectional (neighborhood) boundaries within the city of Bo, Sierra Leone. When combined with data about hospital laboratory visits, a catchment area for one hospital in Bo could be established. A survey of households from within the catchment area determined that the average population per household (about 6 individuals) was similar to that found in the 2004 census. However, we also found that the average house was inhabited by more than one household, for an average of 17.5 inhabitants per residential building, which is critical information to know when estimating population size using remote imagery that can detect and enumerate buildings.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The methods developed in this paper serve as a model for the involvement of communities in the generation of municipal maps and their application to community and health concerns.</p

Habitat Preferences of Butterflies in the Bumbuna Forest, Northern Sierra Leone

The habitat preferences of the butterfly fauna were studied in the Bumbuna Forest Reserve in northern Sierra Leone. The intact forest reserve and a secondary forest regrowth, disturbed as a result of slash-and-burn agriculture, were compared to savanna habitats. Of the 290 specimens collected, 195 butterfly species were included, of which significant proportion were Nymphalidae. Of the 147 forest species, 111 (75.5%) showed preferences for the forest habitats, while 70 (47.6%) and 34 (23.1%) preferred disturbed and savannah habitats, respectively. Numerically, a comparable proportion of savannah species were recorded in the 18 disturbed (73.9%) and 16 savannah habitats (63.2%). Accumulated species richness and diversity indices were lower in the disturbed habitats compared to the forest reserve, but lowest in the savanna habitats. However, a large proportion of forest species, especially those with either a more restricted geographic range or species for which no information on geographic distribution was available, were exclusively captured in the forest patches. The survey indicated the presence of a rich butterfly fauna, which should be systematically collected for further research and study in order to build a good taxonomic database for Sierra Leone

Home birth and hospital birth trends in Bo, Sierra Leone

As of April 2010, all maternity care at government healthcare facilities in Sierra Leone is provided at no cost to patients. In late 2010, we conducted a community health census of 18 sections of the city of Bo (selected via randomized cluster sampling from 68 total sections). Among the 3421 women with a history of pregnancy who participated in the study, older women most often reported having a history of both home and hospital deliveries, while younger women showed a preference for hospital births. The proportion of lastborn children delivered at a healthcare facility increased from 71.8% of offspring 10–14 years old to 81.1% of those one to nine years old and 87.3% of infants born after April 2010. These findings suggest that the new maternal healthcare initiative has accelerated an existing trend toward a preference for healthcare facility births, at least in some urban parts of Sierra Leone