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| The randomly selected villages surveyed. |
It was way back in February that the partnership between
Peace Corps Togo and a number of organizations working in Togo was initially
suggested. With months of back and forth
communication, but little progress towards actually cementing the relationship
and beginning the project it felt like it would never come to fruition. But alas, it is finally done!
Working with a number of large organizations and the
government to establish a project was at times very trying. While working with large international
organizations can lead to a wide-reaching and successful project, sometimes
getting everything going takes much patience. Four months past of back and
forth e-mails before all parties involved could agree on a meeting. After the
first meeting each partner had different comments on how things should be
executed and some of those suggestions came as contradictions to each other.
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| Representatives from our partners who worked with us on the piloting committee. |
As we hoped to get moving on the project before the a large
group of volunteers started to complete their service and leave the country,
even after our second meeting things felt to be moving very slowly as we waited
for the agreed funds to arrive. As soon
as our funding came in though, we were a flurry of activity with hardly two
weeks passing before we began training for the survey. Giving volunteers and their teams time to
survey and submit their data it was a month and a half before we got started on
our analysis.
While we found that the campaign did not quite succeed in its
endeavor achieve “universal coverage” which is defined as one Long Lasting
Insecticide-Treated Net (LLIN) for every 1.8 people, ending with one LLIN for
every 2.22 people, we found other interesting results that showed the success
of the campaign and where some improvement could be needed. The campaign did
help to achieve the Plan National de Développement Sanitaire (National Health
Development Plan) of 2012-2015’s goals of having 71.4% of pregnant women and
75.4% of children under-5 sleeping in Togo under a bed net, however, in my own
region, Maritime, the goal was not achieved for pregnant women as net usage was
lower in Maritime than the other regions.
Before the campaign only 40% of households owned even one
net, but after the distribution over 93% of households had received at least
one net. Close to 75% of bed nets were
hung up for use and a little over 71% of people surveyed reported that they
slept under a net the night before, though in Maritime only 63% of people slept
under a net.. Pregnant women and
children under five years of age were more likely to sleep under a net than the
general population. As they are a target
population because of their susceptibility to malaria, it is a positive sign to
see that they are sleeping under bed nets—likely indicating that previous
efforts directed at them have had some success.
People’s knowledge of malaria seemed to be pretty high and
the majority of people were able to identify the correct cause of malaria,
though even for some who gave the right answer they also gave an incorrect
response, including drinking dirty water and working too hard in the sun, thus
showing that there is room for improvement in education and that there may be a
lack of understanding to as to how to differentiate between malaria and other
fever causing illnesses. Besides an
insufficient quantity of nets, one of the main reasons for not sleeping under a
net was that it wasn’t hung at the time, including that it was being wash,
there wasn’t space in the house and that people did not know how to hang a net,
further indicating the need for more education as to proper care and use of a
bed net.
All of our results went into two papers that were presented
to our partners. We also gave a
presentation of our results to Peace Corps administrators and attended a
meeting with the Minister of Health, the Director of WHO Togo, and a representative
of UNICEF. The last meeting that was on Monday rounded up the conclusion of our
work.
Now that we are done I feel very put-out. We spent so many hours planning and executing
the project that these few weeks before my next project begins have seemed very
empty, though, I am exceedingly happy to be back in Vogan for a while. My partners here have been very understanding
of my work outside of Vogan, but now we are very excited to refocus on our
projects here at home.
