Gemechu Debesa Wedajo

This research was conducted to examine the state of climate change vulnerability in urban households using the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and LVI-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework model in urban centers of southwest Ethiopia. A mixed study design was applied to quantitative and qualitative data that were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire surveyed from 384 sampled households. The results of the study showed that with varying degrees of impacts, all of the four urban centers covered in this study were vulnerable to climate disasters due to significant increment in temperature in the urban centers, flooding, and landslides. The majority (60%) of the respondents highlighted that emergency support was not provided during the occurrence of such climate-related extreme events. The results revealed that urban center household communities experienced different degrees of climate vulnerability due to differences in their exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The findings of this study, therefore, provide baseline information for understanding the state of vulnerability and the context of urban households. This calls for devising more decisive policy interventions that could enhance the community’s adaptive capacity and reduce its exposure level through designing local level resilience-building adaptation strategies to reduce the vulnerability of urban centers.

Schistosomiasis is one of the snail-borne diseases responsible for the second-highest burden of diseases among neglected tropical diseases. The use of mass drug administration to the populations most at risk is a backbone of the strategy to prevent and control schistosomiasis transmission. However, it offers no protection against re-infection, and humans are often re-exposed when they return to water bodies where snails release cercariae. Surveys on cercarial infection in snails could provide better insights on human disease risk. Hence, in this study, we investigated cercarial infection in snails and also determined the epidemiology of Schistosoma mansoni among fishermen at Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes. Freshwater snails were collected from the shorelines of Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes for examination of cercarial infection during 2020. Environmental data on water quality variables and physical characteristics of snail habitats were collected. Stool samples were collected from fishermen and the Kato-Katz technique was applied for the quantification of Schistosoma mansoni eggs. A malacological survey indicated that six morphologically distinguishable types of cercariae were found in snails. Infected snails with cercaria were more likely present in habitats with high five-day biological oxygen demand and low dissolved oxygen. The overall prevalence of Schistosoma mansoni infection among the fishermen at Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes was found to be 21.5%. This indicates that fishermen at Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes are one of the groups of people harboring schistosome cercariae which are potentially responsible for the transmission of schistosomiasis to lakeshore communities who have contact with lake water. Therefore, complementary medical treatment, public health interventions, environmental management and snail reduction are needed to control the transmission of schistosomiasis.