Association between water, sanitation and hygiene (wash) and prevalence of trachoma in Monze district of southern province, Zambia.
Date
2020
Authors
Musonda, Chikwanda
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Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Background- Trachoma is the most common infectious cause of blindness in Zambia. Many factors contribute to Trachoma infection. These include poor personal hygiene, lack of access to clean water, and availability and type of sanitary facility. To better understand factors contributing to the high Trachoma prevalence, the 2018 Ministry of Health, Zambia conducted a Tropical Data Trachoma health survey in 47 districts. Based on the high prevalence (52.3%) revealed from an earlier survey conducted from 2007-2012, data in Monze district was extracted to determine the association of water sanitation and hygiene with the prevalence of Trachoma.
Aim -The aim of the study is to determine association of between water, sanitation and hygiene and prevalence of Trachoma in Monze.
Method – The study used secondary data from Ministry of Health Tropical Trachoma Data Survey. Data was extracted using a data extraction tool and analysed using Stata version 14. The data consisted of 736 households and 3148 individuals. Independent variables extracted included (age, sex, source of washing water, source of drinking water, type of sanitary facility type of latrine and availability had wash facility) and matched with the dependent variable (Prevalence of Trachoma).
Results –The overall prevalence of Trachoma among residents of Monze district is 2.0% disaggregated 3.4 % for 1-9 age group and 1.1% for ≥10 age group. The proportion of females with trachoma was higher in 59.4% as compared to males 40.6%. The findings revealed that factors which were associated with trachoma eye infection were drinking water source, protected well/spring and piped water. The factors associated with Trachoma after adjusting for other variables were; drinking water from a protected well/spring (AOR 8.343, CI 1.126-16.803), piped water (AOR 4.127, CI 1.088-15.648 and piped water for washing (AOR 0.172, 95% CI 0.031 to 0.944.439). Presence of hand wash facility was very low 2.9% while hand washing agents was even lower at 0.41%.
Conclusion- Children are at a higher risk of Trachoma prevalence. Other WASH aspects such as adequacy of water might be more important than presence of potable water. The major factors associated with the prevalence of Trachoma in Monze are WASH focused.
Key words- Trachoma, Factors associated, water and Sanitation
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Trachoma--Zambia