Abstract
Background: Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne disease with high case fatality and no specific treatment. Little is known about the community's (especially parents/guardians of children) awareness regarding JE and its vaccine in Yangon region, which bears the highest JE burden in Myanmar. Methods: We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study in Yangon region (2019) to explore the knowledge and perception of parents/guardians of 1-15 year-old children about JE disease, its vaccination and to describe JE vaccine coverage among 1-15 year-old children. We followed multi-stage random sampling (three stages) to select the 600 households with 1-15 year-old children from 30 clusters in nine townships. Analyses were weighted (inverse probability sampling) for the multi-stage sampling design. Results: Of 600 parents/guardians, 38% exhibited good knowledge of JE , 55% perceived JE as serious in children younger than 15 years and 59% perceived the vaccine to be effective . Among all the children in the 600 households, the vaccination coverage was 97% (831/855). Conclusion: In order to reduce JE incidence in the community, focus on an intensified education program is necessary to sustain the high vaccine coverage in the community.
Highlights
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne disease with high case fatality and no specific treatment
Vaccine coverage was calculated by the number of children that received JE vaccination divided by the total number of children and presented as proportion and 95% confidence interval (CI).Odds ratios with 95% CI were estimated to determine the socio-demographic characteristics associated with good knowledge score and vaccination status using logistic regression
65.3% knew that the JE vaccine was available locally, only 26.8% correctly answered that vaccination is the most effective means to protect against JE
Summary
The 600 households, the vaccination coverage was 97% (831/855). Conclusion: In order to reduce JE incidence in the community, focus on an intensified education program is necessary to sustain the high vaccine coverage in the community. Little is known about the community’s (especially parents/ guardians of children) awareness regarding JE and its vaccine in Yangon region, which bears the highest JE burden in the country[6] This data, alongside vaccination coverage data for children, may help the regional vector borne disease control (VBDC) programme and EPI to develop a new coordinated strategic plan to successfully reduce JE transmission in Yangon region. In Yangon region, we aimed to describe the i) knowledge and perception of the parents/guardians of children (1–15 years old) towards JE disease and vaccine, and ii) JE vaccine coverage among 1–15 year-old children
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