The project aims to evaluate an integrated approach for early detection and effective management of leprosy and other skin NTDs in Cote d’Ivoire
Integrated approach with skin camp, eSkin Health app, and teledermatology in early detection and effective management of skin NTDs in Cote d’Ivoire
Project Coordination
Partners
- School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University Japan
- Raoul Follereau Institute Côte d’Ivoire
- Institute Pasteur Côte d’Ivoire
- National Leprosy Elimination Program Côte d’Ivoire
Project summary
There is a high prevalence of debilitating and disabling diseases affecting the skin in Côte d’Ivoire. These include leprosy, Buruli ulcers, yaws and lymphatic filariasis. The true extent of these diseases is underappreciated for several reasons: 1) inadequate health seeking behaviour due to lack of awareness; 2) no organised campaigns to find possibly undiagnosed cases; and 3) a critical lack of trained healthcare personnel to diagnose these conditions. This project will address this gap by proposing an integrated approach of skin surveillance in remote communities using skin camps, community mobilisation, and a digital health tool.
The research group, together with a Japanese IT company, has developed a digital health tool called ‘eSkinHealthApp’, which is an application system on a tablet that can be used as a portable patient chart and for ‘telemedicine’. The group hypothesizes that focused training of healthcare workers, organisation of this mobile device-based decision support system, and connection via ‘telemedicine’ with remotely based expert will significantly improve diagnosis accuracy and case management of leprosy and other skin NTDs. The study will be implemented in Zouan Hounien health district of Côte d’Ivoire located in the western border with Liberia with high leprosy endemicity. Ten villages in this district were selected as potentially highly endemic area for skin NTDs based on previous local health district data.
Nurses and community health workers in the selected villages will be trained on leprosy and skin diseases and the use of the app The trained healthcare workers will then receive tablets with the eSkinHealth app.
Skin camps will organised in schools or at community gathering areas in the 10 selected villages. In addition, year-round active case detection and treatment activity by local healthcare workers is planned, supported by mhealth tools and teledermatology.
The aim is to improve the awareness of these neglected skin diseases, to provide a better estimation of their prevalence, to improve the knowledge of the local healthcare workers in diagnosis and management, and to maintain a network to support their clinical decision-making through telemedicine.