Search results

This study examines mosquito-borne diseases and health hazard of using mosquito repellents in Bangladesh. This study also targets to explore the use of different mosquito repellents and associated health hazard between slum and residential people.

This study has applied a stratified systematic sampling technique taking 120 adult individuals from residential and slum areas covering users and non-users of mosquito repellents of Khulna city, Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire has been used to collect data from respondents.

Econometric techniques are exercised to examine the occurrence, severity and duration of different respiratory diseases. Results exhibit that poor and less-educated slum people are more prone to face respiratory diseases compared to residential people. The health cost of slum and residential people is estimated US$ 134 and US$ 9, respectively.

Relevant stakeholders under public health programs should spread awareness among people regarding the negative health effect of using mosquito repellent, encourage them to limit the use of harmful repellent and instead use herbal product (neem coil), avoid using repellent in living room rather use outside of room and close window and use proper bed net at night.

This study underpins arranging public health programs and taking averting actions as an impetus to raise consciousness toward the negative health effect of using mosquito repellents.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of breeding containers on the production of Aedes mosquitoes after a vector-control program in households that might support dengue transmission in tourist attraction areas of Bang Kachao Riverbend, Thailand.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in an ecotourism area of Bang Kachao Riverbend, Thailand, during the period October 2016 to September 2017. A total of 832 households from five villages participated in the study. Data collection employed an interview questionnaire, larval mosquito survey and measurements of the chemical properties of the water in each container. A binary logistic regression model was used to investigate the characteristics of water containers influencing the presence or absence of Aedes immatures.

The study found that water containers located inside households had a highly presence of Aedes immatures (2.22 times) compared with outdoor containers. Water containers without lids and water containers with ineffective had a high presence of Aedes immatures (3.69 and 2.54 times, respectively). In addition, the chemical properties of the water inside the containers, such as pH, influenced the presence of Aedes immatures (1.76 times) (OR=1.76, 95% CI=1.59–1.96).

The study results emphasized the characteristics of water containers in households located in a tourist attraction area. The findings may inform public health vector-control messages for households located in the tourist attraction area.

The political crisis related to two main factors internal to the public revenue system, namely financial markets and the commercialisation of the state, and three related external factors, pertaining to the pandemic, popular discontent and inequality. The emphasis on financial markets since the mid-1990s expanded the commercialisation of the state while neglecting public accountability and government oversight. The efforts to shore up public finances through the tax system is increasingly undermined by the global tax architecture, enabling financial secrecy and illicit financial flows.

The pandemic revealed the significance of women’s work, paid as well as unpaid care work. The pandemic also exposed the limitations of a domestic economy, based on export-oriented development, over-reliant on tourism and remittances from migrant workers. Combining with the on-going dengue epidemic, the pandemic highlighted the urgency of climate adaptation. Meanwhile, the popular discontent conveyed an accumulation of grievances linked with cultural discrimination, political misrepresentation as well as economic maldistribution. The participation of new middle-class segments in the protests foregrounded new tendencies significant for strengthening the labour movement as well as working-class parties in their demands for redistribution, reframing democracy as well as citizenship.

This chapter reviews factors responsible for climate change, impacts of the change on animal health, zoonotic diseases, and their linkage with One-Health program.

This chapter is based on the available literature related to climate change and its effect on animal health and production from different points. The causes and change forcers of climate change, direct and indirect effects of the change on animal health management, host–pathogen–vector interaction, and zoonotic diseases are included. Inter-linkage between climate change and One-Health program are also assessed.

Beside natural causes of climatic change, greenhouse gases are increasing due to human activities, causing global climate changes which have direct and indirect animal health and production performance impacts. The direct impacts are increased ambient temperature, floods, and droughts, while the indirect are reduced availability of water and food. The change and effect also promote diseases spread, increase survival and availability of the pathogen and its intermediate vector host, responsible for distribution and prevalence of tremendous zoonotic, infectious, and vector-borne diseases. The adverse effect on the biodiversity, distribution of animals and micro flora, genetic makeup of microbials which may lead to emerging and re-emerging disease and their outbreaks make the strong linkage between climate change and One-Health.

Global climate change is receiving increasing international attention where international organizations are increasing their focus on tackling the health impacts. Thus, there is a need for parallel mitigation of climate change and animal diseases in a global form.

Most research on climate change is limited to environmental protection, however this chapter provides a nexus between climate change, animal health, livestock production, and the One-Health program for better livelihood.

The prevalence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV in a representative sample of the Armenian male adult prison population has been determined and prisoners and staff were anonymously asked on risk behaviours (542 prisoners) and on knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards infectious diseases (348 staff members) Prisoners’ knowledge about the sources of transmission of HIV is quite poor, most of the wrong answers relate to activities in the daily prison life. The acceptance of HIV‐infected inmates tends towards extremely negative attitudes. The reported rate of intravenous drug use was 13.3%, and 51% among those are current injectors. Of the ‘ever injectors’, between 15% and 30% reported high‐risk behaviour. Of particular interest was the fact that the self‐reported HIV test results did not correlate at all with the results of the saliva tests. In the study the prevalence of HIV was 2.4%, a rate which is 27 times higher than in the general population. The prevalence rate for hepatitis B among prisoners is 3.7% and for hepatitis C 23.8%. The most important risk factor for contracting an HCV infection was drug use and the second, time spent in prison within the last 10 years, which is an independent risk factor. A substantial number of prison employees perceive their working condition as risky and themselves as at risk for TB, hepatitis B/C or HIV, but large groups had no idea about infection rates. Regarding HIV and hepatitis, knowledge is poor and patchy. While staff show quite good knowledge regarding the main transmission routes via blood and unprotected sex, a low level of knowledge becomes obvious when considering everyday‐life situations, which may cause fears in such a closed setting like prison. Standards including confidentiality and non‐segregation are not accepted in respect of HIV positive prisoners. Here, attitudes range between ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’, which might express uncertainty and insecurity about the risks HIV‐positive persons carry. The provision of sterile needles for tattooing and sterile syringes and needles for injecting drugs users to prevent the spread of infectious diseases are not agreed by the majority of prison staff.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention program for dengue fever prevention among people in rural communities.

A quasi-experimental study was designed for two groups. The intervention group received five weeks of dengue hemorrhagic prevention program consisted of knowledge broadcast, campaign, model house contest and group education. The control group received only the usual care of health promoting hospitals. The primary expected outcomes were changes in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers and preventive action from baseline data, post-intervention and three-month follow-up, along with a comparison between the two groups. The secondary expected outcomes were changes in house index (HI) from baseline to post-intervention and three-month follow-up, along with a comparison between the two groups.

From the total of 64 participants, 32 were randomly assigned to the control group and 32 were randomly assigned to the intervention group. There were significant differences in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers, preventive action and HI in the intervention group after received the five-week intervention program and at three-month follow-up (p<0.05).

Dengue hemorrhagic prevention program based on the Health Belief Model was effective in lowering HI and improving knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers and preventive action among people in rural communities. The intervention program may be beneficial in primary care in such a rural community.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate epidemiology and control strategies of the four priority vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in Nepal, i.e. malaria, Kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filariasis (LF) and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The study was a retrospective design to collect data during 1998–2016 from VBDs endemic districts of Nepal. All data were reviewed and epidemiological information of the four VBDs were analyzed.

The number of malaria cases during 1998–2016 of the 13 affected districts was declined from 8,498 to 991 cases with no record of deaths since 2012. The number of cases and deaths in the 12 kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) affected districts in 1998 was 1,409 and 42 cases, respectively, but was dramatically decreased in 2016 to 213 and 2 cases, respectively. LF cases of the 61 affected districts in 2011, 2014 and 2016 were 28,855, 30,000 and 33,517 cases, respectively. In total, 25 districts achieved elimination target and the remaining are expected to complete the needful cycles by 2018. Dengue incidence of the 31 affected districts during 2006–2015 was under controlled with reported cases of 642, 356 and 136 cases in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and only one death in 2015. Implementation of control strategies particularly disease management and community peoples’ awareness significantly reduced the cases and deaths of the target VBDs.

The results of this study clearly suggest that the current control strategies have been worked effectively. However, in particular of the VBDs, health education in communities in the endemic areas should be adopted for better community participation in the context of the primary health care approach and increase the effectiveness of disease control.

VBDs, i.e., malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), LF and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever, are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the least developed countries which include Nepal. Globalization of travel and trading, unplanned urbanization, environmental and climate change are having a significant impact on disease transmission. Therefore, the Ministry of Health of Nepal had brought some changes in strategies based on activities for disease control, vector control, preventive and preparedness for outbreak response. Consequently, the cases and deaths due to malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filaiasis and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever have been brought down markedly.

The purpose of this chapter is to offer reflections on conventional theories concerning causes and determinants of diseases. It also intends to examine both theoretical and empirical bases for adopting an Integrated Social-Ecological Systems (ISES) lens as a tool for understanding complexities related to drivers, determinants and causes of diseases.

We assessed the theoretical underpinnings of a range of historical and contemporary lenses for viewing infectious disease drivers and the implications of their use when used to explain both personal (i.e. individual) and population health. We examined these issues within the empirical context of the City of Dhaka (Bangladesh) by adopting an ISES lens. Within this study an emphasis has been placed on illustrating how feedback loops and non-linearity functions in systems have a direct bearing upon various aspects of infectious disease occurrences.

A brief triumph over microbes during the last century stemmed in part from our improved understanding of disease causation which was built using disciplinary-specific, monocausal approaches to the study of disease emergence. Subsequently, empirical inquiries into the multi-factorial aetiology and the ‘web of causation’ of disease emergence have extended frameworks beyond simplistic, individualistic descriptions of disease causation. Nonetheless, much work is yet to be done to understand the roles of complex, intertwined, multi-level, social-ecological factors in affecting disease occurrence. We argue, a transdisciplinary-oriented, ISES lens is needed to explain the complexities of disease occurrence at various and interacting levels. More theoretical and empirical formulations, with evidence derived from various parts of the world, is also required to further the debate.

Our study advances the theoretical as well as empirical basis for considering an integrated human-nature systems approach to explaining disease occurrence at all levels so that factors at the individual, household/neighbourhood, local, regional and global levels are not treated in isolation.

For decades, northern Thailand has been a hub for migration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, particularly for migrants from Myanmar. HIV prevalence among Myanmar/Burmese migrants is higher than in the general Thai population. This study aims to focus on Shan migrants living with HIV in Chiang Mai, the metropolitan centre of northern Thailand and to examine two related aspects: migrants’ sexual risk behaviour and their HIV knowledge and beliefs. The study aims to understand circumstances in which mobility increases HIV risk behaviour and prevalence.

Using a qualitative study, the authors conducted in-depth interviews in 2017 with 43 HIV-infected Shan migrants (21 males and 22 females), and 29 health-care providers who work in district hospitals in Chiang Mai.

The authors found that social and economic vulnerability associated with migration, and AIDS-related mortality, increased migrants’ likelihood of having multiple serial partners. Confusion about HIV symptoms, stigmatization of HIV positive women and low risk perceptions, particularly among men, increased their risk behaviours.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to study the way of life, sexual behaviour and HIV knowledge and beliefs of Shan Migrants from Myanmar Living with HIV in Thailand.