Why the poor pay more: household curative expenditures in rural Sierra Leone.

This paper draws on data from Sierra Leone, and secondary data from elsewhere, to show that the rural poor can be disproportionately disadvantaged by user charges for health care, paying a higher percentage of their incomes for health care than wealthier households. Cost sharing systems at primary care level should include exemptions for the poor, but rarely succeed in consistently protecting them. The regressivity of health expenditures also results from lack of protection from the higher costs of less-frequently used, expensive providers. In Sierra Leone, the burden of curative treatment costs for all groups came mainly from private and NGO providers. Proximity to facilities appeared a more important factor in their use than average price levels. Even if a perfect exemption system existed at government primary care facilities, it would not have had much overall effect because of their relatively small contribution to household health expenditures. The financial burden on households could be relieved by making basic health facilities more accessible and at hospital level using additional resources generated through improved efficiency and cross-subsidization to provide exemptions. Also, pricing policy should take into account local economic conditions. Insurance/prepayment schemes covering the cost of hospitalization would come closer to an ideal solution, but have been implemented in very few of the poorer countries.

Immunization coverage, infant morbidity and infant mortality in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

The study, which is based on data from a household level health survey conducted in 1990 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, examines the coverage of an Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), infant mortality, and infant morbidity among children in Greater Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone. The results of the study indicate that there was a decline in infant mortality in the recent period of the survey, 1988-89, compared to earlier periods. This decline seemed to have been the result of immunization coverage, which considerably increased by 1989-90, reaching above 70% of the children under age 5. The study further reveals that the increased immunization coverage of children and their mothers might have considerably reduced the incidence of tetanus. While reduction of tetanus might have played the leading role in the latest reduction in infant mortality, the incidence of diarrhea, measles, and malaria continued to be high, suggesting that the increase in the quality and quantity of basic immunizations, oral therapy for diarrheal disease, and provision of chloroquine and improved drugs for malaria disease could further reduce most of the deaths from these prevailing diseases among children under age 5.

Intestinal helminth infections in children under 5 years old from Moyamba District Southern Province; Sierra Leone

An epidemiological survey was carried out in May 1990 to determine the prevalence of intestinal helminth infections in children (0-5years) living in the Moyamba District; Southern Province; Sierra Leone. On the basis of nematode eggs and larvae observed during microscopic examination of stools samples obtained from 305 children; evidence for infections with the following species of helminth (per cent prevalence) was obtained : ascaris lumbricoides (28.2); necator americanus (19.3); trichuris trichiura (10.8); strongyloides fuellborni (8.9); strongyloides stercoralis (4.3) and enterobious vermicularis (0.7)