Uganda Mountain Community Health System-Perspectives and Capacities towards Emerging Infectious Disease Surveillance

In mountain communities like Sebei, Uganda, which are highly vulnerable to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, community-based surveillance plays an important role in the monitoring of public health hazards. In this survey, we explored capacities of village health teams (VHTs) in Sebei com...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2021-08, Vol.18 (16), p.8562
Main Authors: Siya, Aggrey, Mafigiri, Richardson, Migisha, Richard, Kading, Rebekah C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cell Phone
Cellular telephones
Climate change
Communicable Diseases, Emerging - epidemiology
Community Health Planning
Community Health Workers
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Disease control
Environmental hazards
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Health hazards
Humans
Infectious diseases
Livestock
Logistics
Mountains
Public health
Uganda - epidemiology
Wildlife
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Summary:In mountain communities like Sebei, Uganda, which are highly vulnerable to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, community-based surveillance plays an important role in the monitoring of public health hazards. In this survey, we explored capacities of village health teams (VHTs) in Sebei communities of Mount Elgon in undertaking surveillance tasks for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in the context of a changing climate. We used participatory epidemiology techniques to elucidate VHTs' perceptions on climate change and public health and assessed their capacities to conduct surveillance for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Overall, VHTs perceived climate change to be occurring with wider impacts on public health. However, they had inadequate capacities in collecting surveillance data. The VHTs lacked transport to navigate through their communities and had insufficient capacities in using mobile phones for sending alerts. They did not engage in reporting other hazards related to the environment, wildlife, and domestic livestock that would accelerate infectious disease outbreaks. Records were not maintained for disease surveillance activities and the abilities of VHTs to analyze data were also limited. However, VHTs had access to platforms that could enable them to disseminate public health information. The VHTs thus need to be retooled to conduct their work effectively and efficiently through equipping them with adequate logistics and knowledge on collecting, storing, analyzing, and relaying data, which will improve infectious disease response and mitigation efforts.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph18168562