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A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi

Rabies is an important neglected disease, which kills around 59,000 people a year. Over a third of these deaths are in children less than 15 years of age. Almost all human rabies deaths in Africa and Asia are due to bites from infected dogs. Despite the high efficacy of current rabies vaccines, awar...

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Autores principales: Burdon Bailey, Jordana L., Gamble, Luke, Gibson, Andrew D., Bronsvoort, Barend M. deC., Handel, Ian G., Mellanby, Richard J., Mazeri, Stella
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29522517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006293
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author Burdon Bailey, Jordana L.
Gamble, Luke
Gibson, Andrew D.
Bronsvoort, Barend M. deC.
Handel, Ian G.
Mellanby, Richard J.
Mazeri, Stella
author_facet Burdon Bailey, Jordana L.
Gamble, Luke
Gibson, Andrew D.
Bronsvoort, Barend M. deC.
Handel, Ian G.
Mellanby, Richard J.
Mazeri, Stella
author_sort Burdon Bailey, Jordana L.
collection PubMed
description Rabies is an important neglected disease, which kills around 59,000 people a year. Over a third of these deaths are in children less than 15 years of age. Almost all human rabies deaths in Africa and Asia are due to bites from infected dogs. Despite the high efficacy of current rabies vaccines, awareness about rabies preventive healthcare is often low in endemic areas. It is therefore common for educational initiatives to be conducted in conjunction with other rabies control activities such as mass dog vaccination, however there are few examples where the efficacy of education activities has been assessed. Here, primary school children in Zomba, Malawi, were given a lesson on rabies biology and preventive healthcare. Subsequently, a mass dog vaccination programme was delivered in the same region. Knowledge and attitudes towards rabies were assessed by a questionnaire before the lesson, immediately after the lesson and 9 weeks later to assess the impact the lesson had on school children’s knowledge and attitudes. This assessment was also undertaken in children who were exposed to the mass dog vaccination programme but did not receive the lesson. Knowledge of rabies and how to be safe around dogs increased following the lesson (both p<0.001), and knowledge remained higher than baseline 9 weeks after the lesson (both p<0.001). Knowledge of rabies and how to be safe around dogs was greater amongst school children who had received the lesson compared to school children who had not received the lesson, but had been exposed to a rabies vaccination campaign in their community (both p<0.001) indicating that the lesson itself was critical in improving knowledge. In summary, we have shown that a short, focused classroom-based lesson on rabies can improve short and medium-term rabies knowledge and attitudes of Malawian schoolchildren.
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spelling pubmed-58625372018-03-28 A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi Burdon Bailey, Jordana L. Gamble, Luke Gibson, Andrew D. Bronsvoort, Barend M. deC. Handel, Ian G. Mellanby, Richard J. Mazeri, Stella PLoS Negl Trop Dis Research Article Rabies is an important neglected disease, which kills around 59,000 people a year. Over a third of these deaths are in children less than 15 years of age. Almost all human rabies deaths in Africa and Asia are due to bites from infected dogs. Despite the high efficacy of current rabies vaccines, awareness about rabies preventive healthcare is often low in endemic areas. It is therefore common for educational initiatives to be conducted in conjunction with other rabies control activities such as mass dog vaccination, however there are few examples where the efficacy of education activities has been assessed. Here, primary school children in Zomba, Malawi, were given a lesson on rabies biology and preventive healthcare. Subsequently, a mass dog vaccination programme was delivered in the same region. Knowledge and attitudes towards rabies were assessed by a questionnaire before the lesson, immediately after the lesson and 9 weeks later to assess the impact the lesson had on school children’s knowledge and attitudes. This assessment was also undertaken in children who were exposed to the mass dog vaccination programme but did not receive the lesson. Knowledge of rabies and how to be safe around dogs increased following the lesson (both p<0.001), and knowledge remained higher than baseline 9 weeks after the lesson (both p<0.001). Knowledge of rabies and how to be safe around dogs was greater amongst school children who had received the lesson compared to school children who had not received the lesson, but had been exposed to a rabies vaccination campaign in their community (both p<0.001) indicating that the lesson itself was critical in improving knowledge. In summary, we have shown that a short, focused classroom-based lesson on rabies can improve short and medium-term rabies knowledge and attitudes of Malawian schoolchildren. Public Library of Science 2018-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5862537/ /pubmed/29522517 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006293 Text en © 2018 Burdon Bailey et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Burdon Bailey, Jordana L.
Gamble, Luke
Gibson, Andrew D.
Bronsvoort, Barend M. deC.
Handel, Ian G.
Mellanby, Richard J.
Mazeri, Stella
A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title_full A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title_fullStr A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title_full_unstemmed A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title_short A rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in Zomba, Malawi
title_sort rabies lesson improves rabies knowledge amongst primary school children in zomba, malawi
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29522517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006293
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