Descriptive Statistics
A total of 1,034 individuals from the 258 households were interviewed during the survey. Two groups of respondents were interviewed in this study. The first group was the household head who respondent to household related questions. The second group was respondents who responded to NTD and MDA related questions.
From Table 1, it can be observed that about 69% of the household heads were males, 61% were married and a majority (57.4%) were between the ages of 35-64 years. More than half (56%) of the households were rural dwellers and a majority (70%) had up to secondary level of education. It can also be observed that less than half (41%) of the household heads were covered by the national health insurance scheme.
About 444 household members responded to questions on NTD and MDA activities. Out of the 444 respondents, about 37% were in the 20-34 year age group whilst about 40% in the 35-64 year age group. About 62% of the respondents were females, 31% were married, 47% were covered by the national health insurance scheme and 71% had attained education to the secondary level.
Knowledge of NTDs and MDA activities
Table 2 presents information about the knowledge of respondents on NTDs and MDA activities. A total of four hundred and forty-four (444) people were interviewed, a small proportion (15%) of the respondents indicated they ever heard of NTD and about 98% indicated they ever heard of MDA. Most (94.4%) of the respondents knew that MDAs take place in their community. About 49% of the respondents indicated they received tablets during the last MDA, whilst 24.3% stated they received tablets a year before the last MDA. Only 7.9% of 216 respondents suffered side effects after an MDA medication. A little above half (53.2%) of respondents who are aware of MDA in their community indicated that they ever missed a MDA campaign.
Knowledge of CDD was high among respondents. Close to eighty-two percent ever heard of CDD and whilst 93.2% indicated that a CDD was assigned to their community or household. 79.2% knew that CDD gives drugs at different times of the year and 93.2% indicated they ever dealt with a CDD in their community or household.
Concerning STH, bilharzia and river blindness, less than thirty percent ever suffered from STH (22.5%), bilharzia (7.4%) and river blindness (1.1%). Nearly all respondents (98%) who had STH sought treatment. All respondents who had river blindness sought treatment and about 91% seeking treatment for bilharzia. None of the respondents suffered from schistosomiasis and only 0.7% of those who are aware CDD gives drugs at different times of the year ever decided to stop taking medication due to CDD interference.
Among those who indicated that they have ever had STH disease, 51% had it less than three months ago, 59% of them had it less than 6 months ago and 66% of them had it within a year or less whiles 26% had it over a year ago. Of the number of study participants who suffered from STH and sought care, 25 % of them were within the richest socio-economic status quintile while 12% were within the poorest quintile; there was a gradual decrease in percentage who sought care by decreasing socio-economic status.
Bivariate analysis of missing MDA
Table 3 presents the bivariate analysis using chi-square test of association to explore the factors associated with non-participation in MDA campaigns. Only age (P-value = 0.002) and ever receiving albendazole (P-value <0.01) tablets were found to be significantly associated with ever missing MDA campaign. Whiles, The rest of the demographic variables were not significantly associated with ever missing MDA campaign. Also, knowledge on NTDs and MDA activies such as ever suffered from STH, ever suffered from Shisto and knowledge of CDDs were not significantly associated with ever missing MDA campaign.
Table 4 represents results on a multilevel logistic regression that sought to identify some predictors on non-participation of individuals in MDA campaigns. Clustering around communities and households was also taken into account in identifying potential predictors. Marital status and ever receiving Albendazole tablets were the only two factors significantly associated with participation in MDAs. Respondents who never married were 7.17 times more likely to miss an MDA exercise compared to those who were either divorced, separated or widowed [OR= 7.17 (95% C.I; 1.07, 47.95), p=0.042] whilst those who have received albendazole tablets previously were 22.23 times more likely to miss an MDA exercise compared to those who did not receive any tablets in previous MDAs [OR=22.23 (95% C.I; 3.33, 148.42), p=0.001].