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Displaying 11 - 20 of 29 results.

Lassa fever in West Africa: Evidence for an expanded region of endemicity

This resource presents evidence for an expanded endemicity zone between the two known Lassa endemic regions indicating that Lassa virus is more widely distributed throughout the Tropical Wooded Savanna ecozone in West Africa.

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World Health Organisation (WHO): Lassa fever

This is the WHO emergencies website page for Lassa fever.

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Epidemics of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Gabon (1994-2002)

This resource considers the cultural and psycho-sociological aspects accounting for the difficulty to implement control measures during the Ebola haemorrhagic fever epidemics in Gabon between 1994 and 2002. It discusses the possibilities of better surveillance and a quick management of intervention means, including a regional permanent pre-alert.

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Evidence that rodent control strategies ought to be improved to enhance food security and reduce the risk of rodent-borne illnesses within subsistence farming villages in the plague/endemic West Nile region, Uganda

This resource presents a survey of 37 households from 17 subsistence farming villages within the West Nile region of Uganda. This revealed that rodents cause both pre- and post-harvest damage to crops. Evidence of rodent access to stored foods was reported in conjunction with each of the reported storage practices, and the paper suggests that current efforts are inadequate for effectively reducing rodent abundance in homes.

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Case-control study of Mastomys natalensis and humans in Lassa virus-infected households in Sierra Leone

This resource studied Lassa virus infection and antibodies in households where Lassa fever cases occurred and compared these to those in the nearest neighbour houses and "far" houses located across the village. It reports on rodent infection and human anti-body prevalence. 

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The bioeconomics of controlling an African rodent pest species

This resource presents an ecological population model as a basis for an economic analyses of controlling an African pest rodent, the multimammate rate, which causes major damage in maize production. This study sues data from the village level in Tanzania, and the model incorporates density-dependent and density-independent factors.

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Rodent control to fight Lassa fever: Evaluation and lessons learned from a 4-year study in Upper Guinea

This paper performed a 4 year intervention based on chemical rodent control, utilizing anticoagulant rodenticides in 3 villages and evaluating the rodent abundance before and after treatment. They found that chemical treatment provides an effective tool to control local rodent populations. Based on these findings and the acceptability of rodent control activities at community level, the authors aim to promote, in coordination with health and agricultural authorities, a more holistic approach, including rodent trapping and poisoning, environmental hygiene, personal hygiene, house repairs and rodent-proof storage.

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Lassa fever: The politics of an emerging disease and the scope for One Health

As a rodent borne virus, Lassa fever is of particular interest from a One Health perspective. The interplay between security, public health and One Health approaches are explored through ethnographic and interview based research in Kenema, Sierra Leone, a long-term treatment and research hub. ‘Biodefence dollars’ have provided the majority of recent funding in Sierra Leone and have created opportunities for both local and international actors to address a neglected disease.

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Domestic cats and dogs create a landscape of fear for pest rodents around rural homesteads

This paper found that the presence of cats and dogs at the same homestead significantly reduced activity and increased ’giving up densities’ (i.e. increased perception of foraging cost) of pest rodent species. The results suggest that pest rodent activity can be discouraged through the presence of domestic predators. When different types of predator are present together, they likely create a heightened landscape of fear for foraging rodents.

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Shadowlands and dark corners: An anthropology of light and zoonosis

This paper outlines the importance of the house construction and the light for the human and rodent interactions in Upper Guinea (Guinea). To address this interspecies entanglements it is necessary to have in mind how darkness created by furniture and the house design can expand the activity of the animal and the persistence of virus in surfaces. It also highlights the difficulty to localize the trapping of small rodents by kids.

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