Description
Introduction-Objective: Providing basic health services to mobile populations is challenging since they move with their livestock to access seasonal water reservoirs and pastures. Access to health services of these marginalized communities is also influenced by cultural habits and beliefs, affecting health intervention acceptance. The strategy of joint human and animal health campaigns applied in Chad since over 30 years aims to gain trust of nomadic communities, improve coverage of childhood, women and livestock vaccination and increase knowledge about disease prevention measures. These mixed campaigns are organized by the Chadian Ministry of Public Health and Prevention (MPHP) and the Ministry of Livestock (MoL) supported by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and its national partner Centre de Support en Santé Internationale (CSSI) within the Support Program to Health Districts in Chad (PADS) funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Aiming to share knowledge and to facilitate uptake and sustainability of mixed campaigns in Chad, the involved partners together developed an implementation guide based on their long-standing experience. Both concerned ministries officially approved the final version of the guide. Our intended poster will present this guide and the mixed vaccination campaign approach in Chad.
Methodology: Planning of joint interventions starts with careful assessment of the context through a transdisciplinary approach identifying possible barriers to health service delivery. This allows to develop locally adapted Information Communication and Education (IEC) strategy and to gather information on the seasonal movements of the different pastoral groups, which is crucial for timing and location of interventions. Administrative, logistical and technical preparation of the field visits need concerted efforts by all ministries and partner programs involved to maximize the benefit for all stakeholders.
Results and discussion: Overall, during the 2021 nomadic vaccination campaigns in the two (2) districts of Kyabé (Moyen Chari province) and Oum-Hadjer (Batha province), 4084 children aged between 0 and 59 months were covered by vaccination activities. A total of 325 pregnant women received prenatal consultation and 848 women of childbearing age received vaccination against tetanus. Over 11’000 men and women, were given information on prevention of coronavirus infections. On the animal side, 8755 cattle were vaccinated against anthrax, symptomatic anthrax and pasteurellosis. The results show that joint human and animal interventions are well accepted by the pastoral community and contribute to promote and extend health services towards hard to reach people. Although being a costly undertaking that relies heavily on external funds, the use of synergies in working across sectors can reduce cost compared to independent sectoral interventions.
Conclusion: Mixed campaigns improve access to basic health services of pastoral communities. The established implementation guide will support health districts to formulate action plans and request support from partners to respond to the health needs of the nomadic populations. The document can also offer guidance to animal and human health actors in other countries to support their own planning and implementation of similar joint activities in other hard to reach and marginalized communities.
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