Case Finding NTDs in Liberia’s Rainy Season

This content was originally posted by the London Applied & Spatial Epidemiology Research Group (LASER).

Successful case finding is a cornerstone of many health programs, irrespective of where you are or what resources you have. The ultimate goal is to identify everyone possible with the disease of interest. However, the diverse diseases and local situations that play out all over the world mean that case finding can look very different from one place to another. Offering mammograms to all UK women aged 50 to 70 in specialist breast screening units represents one example of case finding. Walking door-to-door through tropical Liberian forests showing pictures of skin NTDs is a very different approach. Yet both are striving towards the same goal.

Liberia is burdened by a number of long-lasting and disfiguring NTDs that affect the skin. Finding them, however, is difficult. Many of those affected live in remote communities who lack access to high quality health care, as well as most other things we associate with development. Some skin NTDs also occur most often during periods of rain and high humidity, so this can be a good time to look. This must be balanced against the additional logistical demands of the wet season, as the use of cars quickly becomes unfeasible, then, as rains intensify, even motorbikes stop being useful. At this point walking can become the only reliable way of reaching affected communities.

Read more of this article from our partner the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) about our collaboration in Liberia.