Knowledge of health personnel on the epidemiological surveillance of diseases targeted by expanded program on immunization in eight health districts of Cameroon

CaHReF 20116, Yaoundé Conges hall, 23 – 26 August 2016 , PL123

Département des Sciences Biomédicales de l'Université de Dschang

BACKGROUND: To reduce infant’s mortality, Cameroon has adopted Expanded Program on immunization which has as objectives elimination and eradication of diseases preventable by vaccination. To attain the objectives of EPI, it requires a good system of surveillance; and health personnel who play an important role in the surveillance of these diseases, need a minimal level of knowledge to better carry out the surveillance system.
OBJECTIVE: Evaluating the knowledge of health personnel on the surveillance of EPI diseases under epidemiological surveillance in 8 health districts of Cameroon in 2015. 
METHODOLOGY: This is a descriptive cross sectional study carry out in 8 health districts of Cameroon. The hospitals district was automatically selected. Others 8 health facilities were selected at random and all the health personnel present service during the study were interviewed.
RESULTS: The study show that among 267 interviewed, 101 (37.82%) knows exactly the four EPI diseases under epidemiological surveillance in Cameroon. In the private(37) 48% of the health personnel have the right answer while 34.22% (64) of health personnel from the public health facilities have the right answer, given a p-value of 0.0357. 186 (69.66%) health personnel know the definition of a case of measles and 6.37% of health personnel knows exacts protocol to follow when faced with a suspected case of measles. We notice that there exist no significant difference in function of grade, category and type of health facility. 
CONCLUSION: From the study, we conclude that health personnel do not have sufficient knowledge on the diseases under epidemiological surveillance in Cameroon and also low knowledge of health personnel is noted in the surveillance of these diseases. In this like, we recommend that health personnel should be trained on the surveillance of EPI diseases under epidemiological surveillance in Cameroon

Knowledge; Surveillance; Health personnel; EPI