Abstract:

Background: Despite causing significant suffering to millions of women and girls, FGS has been overlooked. In many endemic areas, there is inadequate detection, treatment and prevention services for women and girls living in affected areas. The goal of the study is to identify the gaps in health care system that can be filled to improve early diagnosis and management of the population at risk of severe disease and poor clinical outcome as well as providing health education on disease identification, importance of correct diagnosis and treatment as well as prevention.

Method: A total of 17 randomly selected health facilities located in Itilima district at Simiyu region. At each facility, the in charge clinician, or any other healthcare worker appointed by the in- charge clinician, participated ion the questionnaire survey. A quantitative questionnaire installed in epicollector5 was used to collect data. Healthcare workers working at various departments (pharmacy, laboratory, RCH and outpatient) were interviewed. The questionnaire collected information related to healthcare workers knowledge about FGS in transmission, prevention, diagnosis and treatment among pregnant women.

Results: A total of 62 healthcare workers were interviewed. The majority of the dispensaries (75%) had no types of equipment to diagnose schistosomiasis. A total of 94 cases were diagnoses over the last year whereby nearly all of them (94.40%) were based on clinical presentations. All participants had general knowledge of what schistosomiasis is and method of treatment.

The majority of participants (56.45%) were not aware of the common organism causing FGS and only 38.70% would consider the diagnosis of FGS in pregnant women, moreover 74.19% did not know the complications nor the differential diagnosis for FGS

Conclusion: generally, the capacity of the health facilities includes in the current study is inadequate in the areas of diagnosis, treatment and healthcare workers knowledge. The unavailability of praziquantel and laboratory services in many of the health facilities requires an urgent response from the responsible authorities such as the MOHCDGEC.