The Development of Health Tourism in Senegal's Coastal Region

In less developed countries (LDC), health tourism can be seen as a way of specializing in tourism. Covid19 makes even more imperative the need to promote health tourism and also to link it to a greater extent to wellness tourism, thus responding to the current market requirements. The main objective of this study is to assess whether the current tourism offer in Senegal (LDC) could allow health tourism to be implemented. An ad-hoc study has been performed in Senegal's Coastal Region, where interviews directed at the socioeconomic agents and structured questionnaires have been developed, collecting information from the two populations: one sample of 21 private clinics and another of 31 hotels. The data obtained were analyzed following a descriptive analysis. The results indicate that it is possible the developing of wellness tourism, but not medical tourism. Even in the case of a laborintensive product, offering health tourism as a new tourist product requires more modern and sophisticated technological equipment © 2023,African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure. All Rights Reserved.

Knowledge of COVID-19 and the impact on indigents' access to healthcare in Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 constitutes a global health emergency of unprecedented proportions. Preventive measures, however, have run up against certain difficulties in low and middle-income countries. This is the case in socially and geographically marginalized communities, which are excluded from information about preventive measures. This study contains a dual objective, i) to assess knowledge of COVID-19 and the preventive measures associated with it concerning indigents in the villages of Diebougou's district in Burkina Faso. The aim is to understand if determinants of this understanding exist, and ii) to describe how their pathways to healthcare changed from 2019 to 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The study was conducted in the Diebougou healthcare district, in the south-west region of Burkina Faso. We relied on a cross-sectional design and used data from the fourth round of a panel survey conducted among a sample of ultra-poor people that had been monitored since 2015. Data were collected in August 2020 and included a total of 259 ultra-poor people. A multivariate logistic regression to determine the factors associated with the respondents' knowledge of COVID-19 was used. RESULTS: Half of indigents in the district said they had heard about COVID-19. Only 29% knew what the symptoms of the disease were. The majority claimed that they protected themselves from the virus by using preventive measures. This level of knowledge of the disease can be observed with no differences between the villages. Half of the indigents who expressed themselves agreed with government measures except for the closure of markets. An increase of over 11% can be seen in indigents without the opportunity for getting healthcare compared with before the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: This research indicates that COVID-19 is partially known and that prevention measures are not universally understood. The study contributes to reducing the fragmentation of knowledge, in particular on vulnerable and marginalized populations. Results should be useful for future interventions for the control of epidemics that aim to leave no one behind.

Infarctus rénal bilatéral au cours du COVID-19 : cas anecdotique décrit pour la première fois au Sénégal

Introduction L’infarctus rénal est un accident vasculaire artériel aigu dû à un défaut de perfusion entraînant une ischémie, puis d’une nécrose du parenchyme rénal. Nous rapportons un cas anecdotique d’infarctus rénal bilatéral au cours du COVID-19 décrit pour la première fois au Sénégal. Description Il s’agit d’un patient de 48 ans, sans antécédents pathologiques, reçu 10jours après le début d’une infection à SARS-CoV-2, pour une douleur lombaire aiguë, bilatérale, d’intensité 10/10 à EVA, irradiant à tout l’abdomen, sans facteur déclenchant ni calmant, sans position antalgique, associée à une fièvre permanente, des vomissements alimentaires, sans troubles de la diurèse ni hématurie. À l’admission, la conscience était claire. Il y’avait une fièvre à 39°C, une PA à 140/84mmHg, un pouls à 48 bpm, une diurèse à 1200mL/min, une saturation à l’air ambiant à 99 %. Une sensibilité à la palpation des fosses lombaires a été notée. Ailleurs, l’examen était sans particularité. Les explorations complémentaires ont mis en évidence : un syndrome inflammatoire, une lymphopénie sans anémie, ni thrombopénie, une créatininémie à 9,9mg/L, d-dimères élevée et un ionogramme sanguin normal. La tomodensitométrie (TDM) abdominale réalisée en urgence a objectivé une thrombose artérielle rénale droite avec une ischémie de 2/3 du parenchyme rénal homolatéral et une perméabilité de l’artère rénale gauche avec une plage d’ischémie parenchymateuse évoquant une embolie (Figure 1). Ainsi, le diagnostic d’infarctus rénal bilatéral post COVID-19 est retenu. Vu le délai de thrombolyse dépassé, il a été mis sous traitement anticoagulant, un antiagrégant plaquettaire, un antalgique morphinique et un antipyrétique. L’évolution était favorable avec disparition de la douleur, l’apyrexie, et la stabilisation des lésions sur la TDM de contrôle. Conclusion Cette observation illustre la diversité des formes cliniques et la gravité de la COVID-19. Toute douleur lombaire d’apparition brutale dans ce contexte doit faire évoquer un infarctus rénal.

Short-Term Holt Smoothing Prediction Model of Daily COVID-19 Reported Cumulative Cases

COVID-19 is the most deadly respiratory diseases worldwide known so far. It is a real public health problem against which contingency measures such as social distancing and lock down are often used to decrease the number of cases when it increases exponentially. These measures along with their impacts are set based on knowledge about the propagation of the disease, in particular the daily reported new and total cases within a given country. To plan in advance efficient contingency measures in order to stop its rapid propagation and to mitigate a possible explosion of the active cases leading to an uncontrolled situation and a saturation of health structures, governments need to have an indication about the potential number of total cases during incoming days;prediction models such as SIR algorithm try to provide such a kind of prediction. However, ‘existing models like SIR are complex and consider many unrealistic parameters. This paper proposes, based on Holt’s smoothing method combined with a logarithmic function for cold start, a very simple short-term prediction of the daily total number of COVID-19 cases. Our experimental evaluation over various COVID-19 real-world datasets from different countries show that our model, particularly using a linear trend function, gives results with low error rates. We also show that our approach can be generalized to all countries around the world. © 2021, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

Participating in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal: trust and information.

This research aims to understand the level and determinants of people's willingness to participate in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal. We conducted a telephone survey among a marginal quota sample of 607 people over 18 years of age. Only 44.3% of the participants wanted to participate in a vaccine trial for COVID-19, with females intending to participate more than males (AOR = 1.82, 95% CI [1.22-2.72]). Participants who intended to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (AOR = 6.48, 95% CI [4.12-10.4]) and who thought that being infected with the coronavirus would have a significant impact on their health (AOR = 2.34, 95% CI [1.57, 3.51]) were more likely to agree to take part in the COVID-19 vaccine trial. Confidence in the vaccine, health personnel, and the government in the fight against the pandemic are key factors in participants' willingness to participate in a vaccine trial in Senegal.