Analytic Epidemiological Literature Review of HAT

Analytic Epidemiological Literature Review of HAT
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Analytic Epidemiological Literature Review of HAT
The analytical epidemiological literature examines the incidence and distribution of HAT in the democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in particular, addressing the causes of the HAT and the level of prevalence of the diseases in DRC. The bottom line is ascertain why the HAT pandemic is a major issue with respect to your GHP.
HAT has been reported to Africa and highly concentrated in central Africa, whereby DRC accounted to 70% of the infections in the continent. According to World Health Organizations (WHO), factors such such as extreme tropical conditions, poor health infrastructures, and under-reporting and poor prevention measures. For instance, considering the environmental settings, DRC settles in the green equatorial forests that is characterized by extreme tropical climates (Mumba, Bohorquez, Jane Messina, & Taylor, 2011). The nature of the setting provides ideal habitats of the HAT vectors as well as the human activities carried out in biotopes occupied by tsetse flies. In particular, equatorial climate leads to humid forests which harbours numerous tsetse flies, whereby humans expose themselves with the insects during their adventurous expedition and economic pursuits such as hunting, faming, fetching firewood, forest clearing as well as timber related activities (Mumba, Bohorquez, Jane Messina, & Taylor, 2011). Also, the Congo basin is characterized with numerous riverine, forest transitional vegetation and woodland savannah, which have increased the number of tsetse flies in the region. Therefore, the infection have been escalated when humans’ carries out their activities close to these regions. In addition, the risks of the transmission are high when vectors habitats are restricted especially during the dry season.
The above factors, prompts the discussion of the two categories of HAT, namely the Gambiense HAT and Rhodesiense HAT since both have varying prevalence affected by the climate pattern. The transmission of Gambiense HAT is influenced by the site, frequency and intensity of exposure between humans and tsetse flies. In details, the rate of transmission of depends on several factors such as longevity and dispersion, stability of the vectors, and the blood meals during bites (Gilbert, Medlock, & Jeffrey P. Townsend, 2016). Also, another aspect determining the determining the distribution of the illness is the human place of residence, their occupation behaviour and agricultural activities as aforementioned. Since DRC is within the African tsetse filly belt, the prevalence, distribution, behaviour and recurring contacts of the tsetse flies with humans are uniform (Gilbert, Medlock, & Jeffrey P. Townsend, 2016). As much as much Gambiense HAT is considered a rural infection, the urban parts of DRC such as Kinshasa have also recorded the infections. The urban transmission originates from the suburbs and other outskirts part of the city, which have sparse bushes suitable to harbour tsetse flies. In addition, the infection in Kinshasa was linked with urban-rural migration when then city dwellers seasonally moves to rural areas for agricultural reasons (Gilbert, Medlock, & Jeffrey P. Townsend, 2016). Also, Gambiense HAT, has been proven to be an illness for adults. With the surveys indicating prevalence rates peaked in the young-to-mild adult range. On the other hand, Rhodesiense HAT has the highest infections as it affects the highly active population who are buy with activities that exposes them to tsetse flies habitats such the bushes and forests (Gilbert, Medlock, & Jeffrey P. Townsend, 2016). Rhodesiense HAT have varying transmission which reached its peak in the rainy season and last for a period of 3 months especially in the densely populated regions. Concisely, transmission and prevalence of HAT in DRC is generally linked to its proximity to preferred tsetse flies habitats.
The Principle Gaps in Knowledge
As much as the literature has covered sufficient information in the disease, still there are the principal gaps in knowledge about the distribution and determinants of the health problem. One of the conspicuous gap insufficient knowledge about the increasing and decreasing rate of HAT distribution as well as the factors which determines the change of distribution within DRC. In addition, there is low academicism on information about DRC health care facilities and WHO intervention have contributed to the distribution of the disease. In an assumption, the poor level of the DRC health care management has contributed to the escalation of HAT, but this information is narrowly addressed in many literature works of making the company. Furthermore, another gap is the epidemiological knowledge in the case of gambiense HAT, the persistence of the disease transmission by healthy human careers and animal reservoirs, which requires further elucidation. In other words, the sylvatic phases, which leads to the increase of gambiense HAT necessitates further researches and study.
Review and Summarize Pertinent Evidence-Based, Epidemiological Research Studies
Prospective Cohort Study
A peer-reviewed study by Lumbala, et al.(2015), is a perfect example of a prospective cohort study that assesses the distribution and riks attributable of the prevalance of vrious regions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The study is an epidemiological prospective study because it focuses assess a group of similar individuals who are exposed different risks factors to determine the prevalence of the dis...