There are high risks of Yellow Fever and other arboviruses, such as the West Nile Virus, at the Namanga and Mutukula borders, the entry points where Tanzania links with Kenya and Uganda respectively.
That is according to a recent study whose findings have just been compiled in Arusha.
While Tanzania has not reported any Yellow Fever cases to date, the prevalence of Aedes mosquitoes and outbreaks in neighboring countries of Uganda and Kenya are said to present significant risks at the borders such as Namanga and Mutukula.
In addressing this issue, the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, has just carried out special research on the Risk of Yellow Fever and Other Arboviruses at the Namanga and Mutukula Cross-Border Points.
The NM-AIST Chancellor Omari Issa, pointed out that the higher institute of learning has been churning out a number of problem-solving research results to an extent that the management was considering ‘commercializing’ the outputs.
“This is the only way to make study reports get wide coverage,” explained Chancellor Issa, adding that as an education institution, their duty is simply to produce scientific studies, but the business community have ways of relaying the same to members of the public.
Conducted by NM-AIST scholar, Remidius Kamuhabwa Kakulu, under the supervision of Prof. Emmanuel Mpolya and Dr. Esther Kimaro, one of the research studies is the one which addresses the Yellow Fever detection and containment Capacities in Tanzania.
According to the study report, arboviral infections cause over 700,000 deaths globally each year, with Yellow Fever accounting for 200,000 cases and 30,000 deaths particularly in Africa and Southern America.
The study assessed the risk of Yellow Fever, Dengue, Chikungunya, and West Nile Virus at the Namanga (Kenya-Tanzania) and Mutukula (Uganda-Tanzania) border crossings.
During their study, scholars evaluated the capacity to detect and contain these arboviruses in line with the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005).
The researchers were among the 111 scholars who excelled at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology during the 11th Graduation Ceremony held at the Tengeru campus over the weekend.
Their study discovered that Population Connectivity across Border Study identified 147 points of interest along borders between Tanzania-Kenya and Tanzania-Uganda indicating high cross-border connectivity.
A mixed-methods approach was utilized, involving systematic reviews on effectiveness of screening measures at the Point of Entry, seroprevalence surveys for Yellow Fever and other arboviruses antibodies and entomological surveys.
Strategic risks and core capacity evaluations were also conducted using the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
Seroprevalence Survey showed that the seroprevalence rates on the hotspots to be 12.5 percent for Yellow Fever, 12.4 percent for Dengue, 10.7 percent for Chikugunya and 10.2 percent for the West Nile Virus.
Evaluation of temperature screening devices at the borders and mapping population mobility and connectivity were implemented during the extensive study.
Systematic Review demonstrated Points of Entry (and exit) health screening capable of detecting infected individuals and delaying the onset of epidemic ranging from 8.8 percent to 99.6 percent and 7 to 32 days respectively, indicating variability based on strategies employed.
Entomological Survey showed that of 5,301 mosquitoes sampled, 11 percent were Aedes aegypti, and yellow fever virus Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was detected in three out of 46 pools of Aedes Aegpti mosquitoes.
Evaluation of Temperature Screening Technologies showed that three infrared thermometers and walkthrough scanners out of six demonstrated better sensitivity and specificity at 98 percent and 90 percent respectively.
Strategic Risk Assessments identified 47 potential hazards, ranking Yellow Fever among high-risk threats.
Core Capacity Assessment demonstrated minimum core capacity scores for Namanga and sub-optimal capacity for Mutukula.