Infectious Disease of Public Health Importance and the Benefits of Vaccination against them-Study of Practitioners & Subordinate Staff-Turkana County

INFECTIOUS DISEASES OF PUBLIC HEALTH IMPORTANCE AND THE BENEFITS OF VACCINATION AGAINST THE DISEASES-A CASE STUDY OF  MEDICAL & HEALTH PRACTITIONERS AND SUBORDINATE STAFF-TURKANA COUNTY

The major functions of Public Health Department's Infectious Disease Surveillance Division is to:

1. Monitors and tracks the incidence of reportable diseases and conditions.
2. Investigates outbreaks and acts to contain infectious diseases.
3. Provides vaccinations for children and adults, including flu and travel.
4. Investigates animal bites and exposures to prevent transmission of diseases to humans, such as rabies, Lyme disease and the West Nile virus.
5. Provides screening, evaluation and treatment of patients with Tuberculosis.
6. Provides medications to public and private clinic patients at no charge.

There are some 70 infectious diseases/conditions that are reportable to the Public Health Department-Epidemiology and disease surveillance division. The role of the surveillance program is to protect the health of the public by interrupting the chain of communicable disease transmission through active surveillance and prompt contact follow-up as indicated. The public health goals focus on reducing illness, hospitalization, and death from vaccine-preventable diseases and other infectious diseases; expanding surveillance is crucial to those ends. Further efforts to improve disease surveillance will allow for earlier detection of the emergence and spread of diseases. Increased surveillance will save lives by allowing the maximum time possible for public health responses, including vaccine production and development of evidence-based recommendations on disease prevention and control. Surveillance enables rapid information sharing and facilitates the timely identification of people in need of immediate treatment. Increasing laboratory capacity is essential for these efforts.

However, there’s disregard in surveillance when it comes to the medical & health practitioner and the subordinate staff; who is the first person who comes into contact with a patient with an infectious antigen and handles the disinfection of infected surfaces and garments, and disposal and management of hazardous infectious (hospital) waste respectively. There is a false sense of protection or blanket cover due to availability of the vaccines (not all) around the dispensaries/health facilities/hospitals and immortal illusion that a medical & health practitioner can never be infected with a disease from a patient since precaution is adhered with. However, there’s human error and sometimes shortcoming of protective devices when it comes to adherence: for instant an elastic glove cannot prevent a self-prick of the finger by a needle during administration of an injectable drug. Nonetheless, there are post exposure prophylaxes to some of the diseases but not all, especially the infectious ones. All possible disease prevention mechanism must be put in place to protect the skilled personnel. Prevention is better than cure, how many health/medical practitioners have been vaccinated against infectious diseases in Turkana County??

Working in a hospital exposes the practitioners and subordinate staffs to various infectious diseases which can easily be contracted and be even transmitted to the next patient. The corrections population is susceptible to infectious diseases through exposure to blood and other bodily fluids. Every medical & health practitioner and subordinate staff especially the ones in-charge of disinfecting the infected areas, the infected garments and also the ones in-charge of disposal and management of the hazardous, infectious, hospital waste in every dispensary, health-facility, sub-county hospital and referral hospitals should be vaccinated against infectious diseases. Some of the infectious diseases medical & health practitioners and subordinate staffs should be vaccinated include:

a)     Yellow Fever

b)     Hepatitis A & B

c)      Tetanus

d)     Typhoid

e)     Anthrax

f)       Plague(short-term recommended for laboratory personnel)

g)     Q fever

This is a prevention mechanism against case-to-case transmission to the skilled personnel: the medical & health practitioners and the subordinate staff, whose skills are much required during management of outbreaks or disease prevention and control. Sensitization of the manifestation of various infectious diseases should be conducted through SMEs and health promotion activities to medical & health practitioners and subordinate staff. This gesture will ensure transmission of infectious diseases is averted since ever personnel involved in handling of the case in the initial stages including the subordinate staff will have at least an idea of the transmission avenues or media of the infectious disease thus ensure personal protective devices are deployed to act as barriers. This will also ensure the aspect of ‘quarantine’ of all the individuals who came into contact with the patient is ascertained and initiated.

How the hazardous infectious waste is handled and management is crucial; to control and prevent further transmission of the infectious disease. Capacity building the subordinate staffs that is; in-charge of handling waste and equipping them with the right preventive and protective devices/equipment is a strategic solution of preventing transmission, recurrent and reinfection of infectious diseases. Moreover, facilities for management of hazardous waste such as color coded bins, incinerators, placenta pits should not only be provided and established to the required standards but they should also be maintained to function up-to standards.

REFERENCE

CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). 2015. National Laboratory System (NLS), https://www.phppo.cdc.gov/mlp/nls.aspx

Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges— Finding Solutions, Rapporteurs: Stanley M. Lemon, Margaret A. Hamburg, P. Frederick Sparling, Eileen R. Choffnes, and Alison Mack (2007)

Heymann D, 2004 Control of communicable diseases manual, 18th edn, American Public Health Association (the 17th edition, Chin J ed. 2000, was used in compiling The blue book).