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Seifadin Ahmed Shallo,1 Mesfin Tassew2 1Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia; 2Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ambo University, Ambo, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Seifadin Ahmed ShalloDepartment of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ambo University, P.o.box-19, Ambo, EthiopiaTel +251 910768226Email seifadinahmed8226@gmail.comBackground: Evidence from previous studies supports the idea that informing children about their HIV status has long-term positive implications in HIV disease management, children’s quality of life, and ART drug adherence. However, in sub-Saharan African Countries, the HIV status disclosure among children ranges from 0% to 69.2%. So it is important to investigate the up to date evidence that will help in designing contextualized approaches for disclosure. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the HIV status disclosure and its associated factors among children on ART in West Shoa Zone, Ethiopia.Materials and Methods: Institutional-based observational study was conducted from February to April 2019. Quantitative data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 247 HIV positive children on ART for the last six months, and the qualitative data were collected from caregivers and health care professionals.Results: The mean age of the children was 11.11±SD2.8, and 43.6%, (95% CI: 37, 50.9) of the children were fully disclosed. The average age at disclosure was 11±SD2.12. The main reasons for the disclosure were for drug adherence and better self-care while being underage was the commonest reason for non-disclosure. Compared to the age 10– 15 years, the child in the age 6– 9 was 97% [AOR: 0.027, 95% CI: 0.003, 0.22, P< 0.001] less likely to be disclosed. Female children were 2.7 times more likely to be disclosed compared with male children [AOR: 2.73, 95% CI: 1.24, 6, P< 0.013].Conclusion: This finding reveals that HIV status disclosure is generally low, and the decision to disclose or not is affected by factors like child-related, caregivers, and health institution-related factors. This may affect the child’s drug adherence, treatment outcome, and disease transmission. Updating health care providers’ knowledge and skills and working on caregivers’ attitude are needed to manage disclosure and challenges following it.Keywords: disclosure, children, West Shoa

Background: Cold chain management is a continuous and cohesive process of preserving vaccines to ensure their availability and potency. However, the quality control of vaccines has been neglected in resource-limited areas such as Ethiopia. Adequate levels of health workers' knowledge and practices in vaccine cold chain management are important to maintain the potency of vaccines and achieve the intended vaccine end goal., Objective: To assess the level of knowledge and practices of health workers toward vaccine cold chain management and associated factors in resource-limited settings in Ethiopia., Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional survey was conducted from May to June 2023 in eight sub-cities of Sheger City, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. 255 health workers were selected via simple random sampling from 17 health centers and 17 health posts. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire and entered in to EPI DATA version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 26.0 software for analysis. Binary and multiple logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify factors associated with the knowledge and practices of health workers toward vaccine cold chain management. A variable with a p value < 0.25 was considered a candidate for further regression analysis, whereas a variable with a 95% CI and a p value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant., Result: A total of 255 respondents participated, for a 100% response rate. The overall magnitude of good knowledge and practice of vaccine cold chain management was 58% (95% CI: 52.2%--64.3%) and 52.2% (95% CI: 46.3-58.4%), respectively. Receiving pre-service training (AOR = 8.2; 95% CI: (2.93-22.99), availability of SOP/guidelines (AOR = 6.55; 95% CI: (2.0-21.36) and receiving supportive supervision (AOR = 4.2; 95% CI: (1.67-10.59)) were significantly associated with good knowledge of cold chain management. The availability of SOP/guidelines (AOR = 2.13; 95% CI: (1.22-3.7)) and the knowledge of health workers (AOR = 2.32; 95% CI: (1.11-4.8) were significantly associated with good cold chain management practices., Conclusion: There are gaps in knowledge and practice concerning cold chain management. There is an urgent need to improve the knowledge and practice of health workers in cold chain management in the newly organized but resource-limited administrative structure (Sheger) in Ethiopia., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved, and ethical clearance was issued by the Ethical Review Board of Ambo University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences postgraduate program coordinating office with a reference number AU/PGC/670/2015. A support letter was submitted, and permission was obtained from the Sheger city health office and the sampled sub-cities. After the purpose of the study was explained, written informed consent was obtained from the study participants. All methods used in the study were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Despite the efforts and strategies being applied by the government and the partner organizations to increase maternal health service utilization, maternal health service utilization is low in the general population and very low in rural communities of the West Shoa Zone specifically., Objective: This study intended to identify and describe barriers contributing to low maternal health service utilization in selected rural districts of the West Shoa Zone of Oromia regional state, Ethiopia, by 2021., Methods: The study was conducted from February 01 to April 30/2021 in three districts of the West Shoa Zone. The districts were selected purposively based on the report of their last year's (2020) performance on maternal health service utilization obtained from the Zonal health office, where the ANC follow-up and Institutional delivery were the lowest among the Districts in the Zone. A community-based qualitative phenomenological approach was used to explore the demand-supply side barriers affecting the utilization of maternal health services. Six Focus Group discussions, 9 In-depth Interviews, and 12 Key Informants Interviews were conducted with women who gave birth at home in the last 12 months and with health care providers at different health offices and health institutions. Data were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, translated, and analyzed thematically using MAXQDA software., Results: Our findings revealed that though women strongly agree on the importance and advantage of maternal health services utilization, both demand and supply side barriers such as low awareness on when to use the services, not knowing ANC schedule, misinformation about ANC and institutional delivery, not knowing their estimated date of delivery and precipitated labor, shortage of manpower at health institutions, far distance health facilities, and unavailability or un-accessibility of ambulance services during an emergency time, lack of transportation to health facilities were hindering them not to use the services., Conclusion: In general, rural women are facing many challenges yet to accessing and utilizing maternal health services. To achieve the SDG targets, addressing barriers prohibiting a woman from using MCH should be critically addressed., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Dietary diversity is one of the eight core indicators of infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. It is also a proxy for nutrient adequacy of the diet of individuals. There are minimal studies showing the level of dietary practice in urban and rural settings comparably. Hence, the present study intended to assess and compare differences in the level of dietary diversity and its contributing factors in urban and rural settings of the West Shoa zone of Oromia, Ethiopia. A community-based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted among 674 pairs of mothers/caregivers and children aged 6-23 months using a multistage sampling technique. Data were analysed and descriptive summaries were presented with tables, charts and graphs. A linear regression analysis was used to identify factors that were associated with the level of dietary diversity. The dietary diversity score (DDS) was 26⋅1 % (95 % CI 22⋅8, 29⋅5) both in urban and rural ( P < 0⋅001), and also the minimum meal frequency was 56⋅5 % (95 % CI 52⋅7, 60⋅2) ( P < 0⋅038). Child from merchant mother, own production of foods at the household level and frequent advice of IYCF practices during Post natal care (PNC) visit in urban residents, maternal secondary educational level, living with caregiver only, having a merchant father, advice of IYCF practice during PNC visit and utilisation of horse as a means of transportation in rural were positively associated with the level of dietary diversity. Generally, infant and young children who received the recommended dietary diversity and the minimum meal frequency were low in the study area both in the urban and rural settings., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Background: The global burden of road injuries is known to follow complex geographical, temporal and demographic patterns. While health loss from road injuries is a major topic of global importance, there has been no recent comprehensive assessment that includes estimates for every age group, sex and country over recent years., Methods: We used results from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study to report incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, deaths, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years for all locations in the GBD 2017 hierarchy from 1990 to 2017 for road injuries. Second, we measured mortality-to-incidence ratios by location. Third, we assessed the distribution of the natures of injury (eg, traumatic brain injury) that result from each road injury., Results: Globally, 1 243 068 (95% uncertainty interval 1 191 889 to 1 276 940) people died from road injuries in 2017 out of 54 192 330 (47 381 583 to 61 645 891) new cases of road injuries. Age-standardised incidence rates of road injuries increased between 1990 and 2017, while mortality rates decreased. Regionally, age-standardised mortality rates decreased in all but two regions, South Asia and Southern Latin America, where rates did not change significantly. Nine of 21 GBD regions experienced significant increases in age-standardised incidence rates, while 10 experienced significant decreases and two experienced no significant change., Conclusions: While road injury mortality has improved in recent decades, there are worsening rates of incidence and significant geographical heterogeneity. These findings indicate that more research is needed to better understand how road injuries can be prevented., Competing Interests: Competing interests: SLJ reports grants from Sanofi Pasteur outside the submitted work. TRM reports a contract to evaluate AB InBev Foundation’s efforts to, among other things, reduce impaired driving in 6 cities using GBD road safety data in calculating baseline harm., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Objective: Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among reproductive-age women worldwide and the second leading cause of death among women in Ethiopia. Regular breast self-examination is the most cost-effective methods for early detection of breast cancer. Despite this fact, breast self-examination was low among women in the general population and it was not well documented among health care workers. Therefore, this study intended to assess the magnitude of breast self-examination practice and associated factors among female healthcare workers in public health facility in West Shoa Zone, Ethiopia. Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 379 female healthcare workers. The study participants were recruited by lottery method. Data were collected from March to April 2019. Data were entered into Epi data version 4.5 and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Bivariate and multiple logistic regressions analysis were done. With 95% CI, the level of significance was decided at P-value ≤ 0.05., Results: The magnitude of regular breast self-examination practice was 32.6%. Educational levels, breast cancer awareness, knowledge towards breast self-examination were predictors of breast self-examination. Regular awareness creation forum on breast self-examination technique, risk factors, and related matters should be facilitated so that all female health care workers will be reminded.

Background: Among the number of reasons that expose the youth to reproductive health risks, lack of adequate information on sexual and reproductive health issues is of prior concern. Given the lack of readily available information about sexual activity to teens, they turn to media for information about sexual norms and may also use the media as a sexual super-peer that encourages them to be sexually active. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess the association between exposure to sexually explicit materials and sexually risky behaviors among undergraduate students of Ambo University, Ethiopia., Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 403 university students in 2018. Study participants were selected by systematic random sampling technique. Self- administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software version 20. Uni-variate, bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were done. With 95% CI, the p-value of less than 0.05 was taken as the level of significance., Results: About 55% and 52% of the university students were exposed to sexually explicit electronic materials throughout their life and in the last 12 months prior to data collection period respectively. Searching for sex information was the top reason for why university students resorted to watching sexually explicit materials. Sexually active students, senior students and male students were more likely to engage in watching sexually explicit electronic materials compared to their counterparts., Conclusion: A high numbers of university students were being exposed to sexually explicit electronic materials for the sake of searching about sexual and related information. This exposure has a significant association with risky sexual behaviors specifically. We highly recommend that university organize awareness creation forum on the area of sexual health, HIV/AIDS and STI, and related matters.