Publications

Background: Countries' Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) contribute to the reduction of mortality and morbidity, but access to these vaccines remains limited in most low-income countries.

Objective: We aim to assess whether involving community volunteers (CVs) to track children's vaccination status and demographic movements and using recorded data to plan catch-up immunization sessions can improve children's vaccination timeliness, completeness, and coverage.

Methods: This was a field-based randomized controlled trial and communities of the Foumban health district in West Cameroon were allocated to intervention or control groups. In the intervention group, a CV per community was trained to visit households monthly for a year to assess and record in a register, details of EPI-targeted children, their demographic movements and immunization status. The scanned recorded pages were sent to the health center immunizat Read more...

Diarrhoeal disease is a leading cause of childhood illness and death globally, and Shigella is a major aetiological contributor for which a vaccine might soon be available. The primary objective of this study was to model the spatiotemporal variation in paediatric Shigella infection and map its predicted prevalence across low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Individual participant data for Shigella positivity in stool samples were sourced from multiple LMIC-based studies of children aged 59 months or younger. Covariates included household-level and participant-level factors ascertained by study investigators and environmental and hydrometeorological variables extracted from various data products at georeferenced child locations. Multivariate models were fitted and prevalence predictions obtained by syndrome and age stratum.

20 studies from 23 countries (including locations in Central America and South America, sub-Saharan Afr Read more...

Background: Researchers are responsible for the protection of health research participants. The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize the training needs of researchers involved in human health research in Cameroon.

Methods: It was a cross-sectional study conducted in all the Cameroon regions in the last quarter of 2020. It targeted researchers involved in human health research selected by systematic stratified sampling from health and training institutions, and health facilities. Data were collected using a face-to-face administered questionnaire deployed in Smartphones via the ODK-collect. The distribution of participants' exposure to research ethics training was described as well as their knowledge on the related regulatory texts. A score was used to rank the training needs identified by the participants.

Results: Of 168 reached participants, 134 (79.76%) participated in the study. A total of 103 (76 Read more...

Background: In 2020, the world was confronted with COVID-19, which caused a socio-economic panic in several sectors. The use of hospitals has been affected, with an impact on their financial performance. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of the pandemic on the financial performance of a hospital with a care center.
Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study targeting the Yaoundé Central Hospital over two periods : before the pandemic (March to August 2019) and during the pandemic (March to August 2020). Based on the administrative accounts, revenues from the main sources of financial inflows were recorded and compared before and during the pandemic.
Results: From March to August 2019, overall revenue was 1,131,525,099 FCFA and from March to August 2020, it was 762,770,714 FCFA, representing a drop of 32.6%. Medical imaging showed a drop of 14% corresponding to a loss of 96,500,052 FCFA. The laboratory Read more...

HIV remains an epidemic of major public health importance in Cameroon but a decline in HIV prevalence has been observed according to population-based surveys conducted in 2004, 2011 and 2018. We sought to review current evidence for declining HIV prevalence despite increasing survival owing to ‘universal test and treat’ and to explore the reason for the decrease, particularly the role of behavioural change.

We conducted a secondary analysis using HIV prevalence, behavioural and social determinants data of the Demographic and Health Survey Program databases. Trend lines were fitted to data that were available for a minimum of three points in time during the 1991–2018 period. Regression coefficients associated p-values and 95% confidence intervals were obtained using Microsoft Excel software.

Overall adult HIV prevalence decreased significantly from 5.4% (95%CI: 4.8-6.0) in 2004 to 4.3% (95%CI: 3.8–4.8) in 2011 and further down to 2.7% (95 Read more...

Missed opportunities for vaccination (MOV) reflect quality of immunization service. The objective of this study was to assess vaccination timeliness, prevalence, and characteristics of MOVs among children aged 0–23 months, as well as knowledge, attitude and practice of health workers towards immunization. An exit interview method was used to select caregivers and health personnel. Selection took place in 26 health facilities within 14 health areas in the Dshcang Health district. Data were collected using two face-to-face questionnaires adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) tools. We conducted an evaluation of all free vaccines in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). We studied timeliness, assessed MOV, and knowledge, behaviour and attitude of health workers on immunization. Basic statistical tests were used to study the association between MOV and socio demographic characteristics. A total of 363 children aged 0 to 23 months were surveyed. A total of 88 (91.66%) Read more...

Background: Data are needed to serve as evidence in planning the strengthening of pharmacovigilance in health programs administering drugs to populations. The present study was proposed to map the distribution of pharmacovigilance units in health programs, assess the availability of key resources, the implementation of key pharmacovigilance activities and identify needs of involved actors.

Methods: It was a cross sectional descriptive study targeting all health programs of the Cameroon Ministry of Public Health administering drugs/vaccines to the population. Data were collected using semi structured questionnaire administered face to face to key persons in charge of drug safety monitoring or drug management in health programs.

Results: Out of the 09 health programs involved in drug distribution, 07 consented to participate. Five out of them (71.4%) claimed to have existing pharmacovigilance units. Office space, compu Read more...

Introduction: Blood transfusion is a health care procedure that can expose the donor and receiver to risks. The knowledge and practices of healthcare personnel on blood transfusion are necessary to anticipate and/or prevent the occurrence of avoidable transfusion risks. The aim of this study was to assess the training needs of health personnel on blood donor selection procedure.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study targeting health personnel in health facilities that reported contributing in offering blood transfusion services in the West region of Cameroon between March and May 2022. A questionnaire administered face to face was used to collect data from the targeted health personnel exhaustively included from health facilities. Knowledge and practices were assessed by estimating the rate of correct answers. STATA software was used to analyze the data.
Results: Of the 41 health facilities that reported offering b Read more...

Background

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 continues to spread around the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, outside South Africa, as in adults, the pandemic has had very little impact on African children and adolescents, despite very low vaccination coverage. In addition, cases of multisystemic inflammatory syndrome in children were anecdotal in sub-Saharan Africa.

Aims

To identify plausible hypotheses that may explain the low prevalence and mortality of Covid-19 in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Methods

A narrative review of the literature

Results

We have identified five major hypotheses that may explain the low prevalence and mortality of COVID-19 in children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: 1) the lack of a proper epidemiological study; 2) the youthfulness of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, for a disease that essentially concerns elderly subjects with comorbidities; 3) immunomod Read more...

Reducing mortality among COVID-19 cases is a major challenge for most health systems worldwide. Estimating the risk of preexisting comorbidities on COVID-19 mortality may promote the importance of targeting at-risk populations to improve survival through primary and secondary prevention. This study was conducted to explore the contribution of exposure to some chronic diseases on the mortality of COVID-19. This was a case control study. The data were collected from the records of all patients hospitalised at Bafoussam Regional Hospital (BRH) from March 2020 to December 2021. A grid was used to extract data on patient history, case management and outcome of hospitalised patients. We estimated the frequency of each common chronic disease and assessed the association between suffering from all and each chronic disease (Diabetes or/and Hypertension, immunodeficiency condition, obesity, tuberculosis, chronic kidney disease) and fatal outcome of hospitalised patients by estimating crude an Read more...