COMMUNITY COMPREHENSIVE TRAINING ON TYPHOID EPIDEMIC

IPOA ORPHANS AND WIDOWS ASSOCIATION: UGANDA

Introduction:
Typhoid epidemic is one of the most life-threatening transmitted diseases in most parts of Uganda, particularly in rural towns and villages. Aiming to assess the extent and frequency of its spread in the town of Kasese, members of IPOA and the Village’s Health Trainer have conducted a survey-based round visits to more than 110 households.

As evident from medical records and testimonies of the residents, Typhoid epidemic and the scale of its transmission has become undoubtedly one of the major health concerns of the community. It was also noticeable that contaminated foods, poor water sewage, pitiable hygiene, and sanitation are the major causes triggering the rapid transmission of the disease. Such a sanitation and food-related contagions have ignited the mushrooming of flies which are worsening the problem as the biggest carriers of the Bacteria that causes the disease.

Awareness Creation through Training as a Preventive Mechanism:
With no gainsaying as to the necessity of providing urgent medical treatments in order to save the lives of those already infected, creating social awareness through training was found by IPOA as the most appealing strategy for any prospect to minimize and prevent the further distribution of the disease across the town. Accordingly, aiming to provide health education on how to control and completely eliminate the spread of typhoid in the community; to help families improve their nutritional standards by consuming indigenous foods for that enhance body immunity system; and to demonstrate to the community, of how a safe and improved Latrine is constructed using simple and available materials, IPOA has proposed to organize a comprehensive community training focusing on the preventive aspects in dealing with the disease. The training is planned to be offered for six days in the upcoming month from the 3rd -9th April, 2018.

Community-based health-related projects are one of the priorities that PBF has been highly engaged as part of its humanitarian missions in different countries. In full consultation and review of IPOA’s training proposal, PBF is convinced of the potential benefits that this training will bring to the targeted community in fostering their capacity of preventing further transmission of the disease. Accordingly, PBF has judiciously committed to taking responsibility of funding the financial costs of the training project with the full expectation that its outcomes would serve as an inspiring catalyst in realizing the early preventive goals of the society against typhoid epidemic.