Poor housing quality increases risk of rodent infestation and Lassa fever in refugee camps of Sierra Leone.
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Lassa fever, a viral hemorrhagic fever endemic in parts of West Africa, is a severe febrile illness transmitted to humans by the rodent Mastomys natalensis. To determine risk of Lassa fever in households in Sierra Leonean refugee camps, we analyzed the spatial relationships between households with a Lassa case and focal locations of potential rodent habitats. Quality and hygiene factors of households were assessed to determine possible risk factors for household rodent infestation and occurrence of Lassa fever. The odds to have a rat burrow were higher in case houses than in control houses (OR 24, 95% CI 6.0-93). Case houses scored significantly worse in the quality of housing and external hygiene. These findings suggest that risk of Lassa fever in refugee camps depends on individual housing quality and the hygiene of the immediate surrounding environment. (+info)
Dance/movement therapy approaches to fostering resilience and recovery among African adolescent torture survivors.
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Dance/movement therapy (DMT) interventions, if designed to promote cultural relevance and community ownership, may enhance healing among African adolescent survivors of war and organised violence. The author posits a theoretical rationale for body movement-based approaches to psychosocial rehabilitation, and offers DMT's holism as evidence of transcultural applicability. Two distinct DMT iniatives with this population are discussed in terms of theoretical assumptions, implementation, and outcomes. Both efforts afforded creative means for discharging aggression and restoring interpersonal connection. The first of these programes engaged a community of South Sudanese refugee youths, resettled to the U.S., in a series of gatherings for traditional dancing and drumming that reconstituted a central culture-of-origin ritual. Anectodal evidence supports this psychosocial intervention's emphasis on group cohesion as a vehicle with both preventive and reparative capacities. Also a series of DMT groups with youths in Sierra Leone. All organized several years post-conflict, these interventions involved applying the DMT modality within a framework of Western psychotherapeutic conventions described in a series of groups with youths, all organized several years post-conflict, is presented. Programe evaluation revealed a drop in average symptom expression among a group comprised of former boy combatants who reported continual reduction in symptoms of anxiety, depression, intrusive recollection, elevated arousal, and aggression. The group's teenage males joined actively in improvisatory dancing and in other structured creative exercices. Theese former child soldiers later elected to demonstrate their wartime experiences through public presentation of a role-play. A report on this event illustrates the success of the process in overcoming stigma and enabling meaningful community reintegration. Thus, whether introduced in refuge or post-conflict, DMT approaches are shown to embody revitalizing psychosocial support in the aftermath of massive violence. (+info)
Onchocerciasis distribution and severity in five West African countries.
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The Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa recently extended its operation to Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, the western part of Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone. To estimate the number of people infected and blinded by the disease and to determine its distribution and severity in the extension area, 215 villages were selected, using a stratified random sampling procedure, and surveyed. All the relevant entomological information available at the time was used in the sampling procedure and in the selection of 92 non-representative villages that were surveyed to confirm the findings. In addition, the populations of 608 villages were examined to map out in detail the distribution of onchocerciasis in the areas at a high risk of onchocercal blindness. The study estimated that 1,475,367 people were infected and 23,728 were blinded from onchocerciasis out of a rural population of 4,464,183. The northern and western part of the study area and the lower Niger basin presented a low or no risk of onchocercal blindness. The upper Niger basin, the south-central part of Sierra Leone, and three small foci in the Gambia, Bakoye, and lower Niger river basins were areas with a high risk of onchocercal blindness. The other parts of the study area presented a medium risk of onchocercal blindness. By detecting the communities at risk of onchocercal disease this study permits the selection of populations for disease control based on mass distribution of ivermectin, a microfilaricide. (+info)
Psychosocial intervention for war-affected children in Sierra Leone.
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Polysphondylium multicystogenum sp. nov., a new dictyostelid species from Sierra Leone, West Africa.
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Polysphondylium multicystogenum, a new heterothallic species of dictyostelids, is described based on three isolates collected from soils in Sierra Leone, West Africa. This species is characterized by sorophores with a combination of clavate base and ovoid to oblong tip cell, smaller spores and abundant microcyst production under the usual culture conditions for sorocarp formation at 20 C. This is the first report of Polysphondylium producing such abundant microcysts. (+info)
T-cell epitope polymorphisms of the Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein among field isolates from Sierra Leone: age-dependent haplotype distribution?
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Past horrors, present struggles: the role of stigma in the association between war experiences and psychosocial adjustment among former child soldiers in Sierra Leone.
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