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Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment

BACKGROUND: The Global Program for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) started operation in 2000 and aimed at eliminating the disease by the year 2020, following 5–6 rounds of effective annual Mass Drug Administration (MDA). The MDA programme took off in Ghana in 2001 and has interrupted...

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Autores principales: Ahorlu, Collins S. K., Koka, Eric, Adu-Amankwah, Susan, Otchere, Joseph, de Souza, Dziedzom Komi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29433461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5157-7
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author Ahorlu, Collins S. K.
Koka, Eric
Adu-Amankwah, Susan
Otchere, Joseph
de Souza, Dziedzom Komi
author_facet Ahorlu, Collins S. K.
Koka, Eric
Adu-Amankwah, Susan
Otchere, Joseph
de Souza, Dziedzom Komi
author_sort Ahorlu, Collins S. K.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Global Program for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) started operation in 2000 and aimed at eliminating the disease by the year 2020, following 5–6 rounds of effective annual Mass Drug Administration (MDA). The MDA programme took off in Ghana in 2001 and has interrupted transmission in many areas while it has persisted in some areas after 10 or more rounds of MDA. This study was to appreciate community members’ perspectives on MDA after over 15 years of implementation. Findings will inform strategies to mobilise community members to participate fully in MDA to enhance the disease elimination process. METHODS: This was a qualitative study, employing key-informant in-depth-interviews. Respondents were selected based on their recognition by community members as opinion leaders and persons who were knowledgeable about the topic of interest in the community. A snowball sampling technique was used to select respondents. RESULTS: Respondents were well informed about the MDA with most of them saying, it has been implemented for over 12 years. They were aware that the MDA was for the treatment/control of LF (elephantiasis). It came to light that MDA compliance was affected by five related barriers. These are; Medication, Personal, Health system, Disease and Social structure related barriers. Adverse effects of the drugs and the fact that many people perceived that they were not susceptibility to the infection have grossly affected the ingestion of the drugs. CONCLUSION: There is a need for community mobilization and promotional activities to explain the expected adverse reactions associated with the drugs to the people. Also the importance of why every qualified person in the community must comply with MDA must be emphasized.
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spelling pubmed-58098582018-02-16 Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment Ahorlu, Collins S. K. Koka, Eric Adu-Amankwah, Susan Otchere, Joseph de Souza, Dziedzom Komi BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: The Global Program for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) started operation in 2000 and aimed at eliminating the disease by the year 2020, following 5–6 rounds of effective annual Mass Drug Administration (MDA). The MDA programme took off in Ghana in 2001 and has interrupted transmission in many areas while it has persisted in some areas after 10 or more rounds of MDA. This study was to appreciate community members’ perspectives on MDA after over 15 years of implementation. Findings will inform strategies to mobilise community members to participate fully in MDA to enhance the disease elimination process. METHODS: This was a qualitative study, employing key-informant in-depth-interviews. Respondents were selected based on their recognition by community members as opinion leaders and persons who were knowledgeable about the topic of interest in the community. A snowball sampling technique was used to select respondents. RESULTS: Respondents were well informed about the MDA with most of them saying, it has been implemented for over 12 years. They were aware that the MDA was for the treatment/control of LF (elephantiasis). It came to light that MDA compliance was affected by five related barriers. These are; Medication, Personal, Health system, Disease and Social structure related barriers. Adverse effects of the drugs and the fact that many people perceived that they were not susceptibility to the infection have grossly affected the ingestion of the drugs. CONCLUSION: There is a need for community mobilization and promotional activities to explain the expected adverse reactions associated with the drugs to the people. Also the importance of why every qualified person in the community must comply with MDA must be emphasized. BioMed Central 2018-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5809858/ /pubmed/29433461 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5157-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ahorlu, Collins S. K.
Koka, Eric
Adu-Amankwah, Susan
Otchere, Joseph
de Souza, Dziedzom Komi
Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title_full Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title_fullStr Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title_full_unstemmed Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title_short Community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in Ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
title_sort community perspectives on persistent transmission of lymphatic filariasis in three hotspot districts in ghana after 15 rounds of mass drug administration: a qualitative assessment
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29433461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5157-7
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