Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Despite increased vulnerability of displaced communities, the evidence of child marriage in humanitarian setting remains scarce. We conducted this study to estimate the prevalence of child marriage among Somali and Yemeni refugees and their host communities in Djibouti; and assess its independent associations with different exposure variables. Using a stratified random sampling design, we recruited eligible refugee and hosts-near-refugee households within four cites in Djibouti during February–March 2019. We assessed the prevalence of females aged 20–24 married <15 and <18, the prevalence of marriage within females aged 10–19 and 15–19, and multivariate associations between exposure variables and child marriage. Overall, 1,276 households and 6,784 household members were recruited. Among female refugees aged 20–24 (N=107), the prevalence of first married <18 was 10.5 percent and 4 percent for Yemeni and Somali refugees; and among female refugees aged 10–19 (N=1,239), the prevalence of marriage was 7.8 percent and 6.6 percent for Yemeni and Somali refugees, respectively. Child marriage was independently associated with age of the girl (AOR=1.60, 95% CI=1.38–1.85); education level of the head-of-household (AOR=2.65, 95% CI=1.45–4.84); and education of the girl (AOR=0.56, 95% CI =0.30–1.05). This study provides the estimates of child marriage prevalence within Somali and Yemeni refugee communities in Djibouti, adds to the evidence on the protective role of girls education against child marriage, and informs child health, education, and protection programmes targeting these communities in the future.

During an Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak, calculating the exposure window of a confirmed case can assist field investigators in identifying the source of infection and establishing chains of transmission. However, field investigators often have difficulty calculating this window. We developed a bilingual (English/French), smartphone-based field application to assist field investigators in determining the exposure window of an EVD case. The calculator only requires the reported date of symptoms onset and the type of symptoms present at onset or the date of death. Prior to the release of this application, there was no similar electronic capability to enable consistent calculation of EVD exposure windows for field investigators. The Democratic Republic of the Congo Ministry of Health endorsed the application and incorporated it into trainings for field staff. Available for Apple and Android devices, the calculator continues to be downloaded even as the eastern DRC outbreak resolved. We rapidly developed and implemented a smartphone application to estimate the exposure window for EVD cases in an outbreak setting