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 agr...