Training of village health workers in Tanzania; a comparison of two approaches.

The paper compares the costs of training for two groups of Village Health Workers (VHWs) in Tanzania, where the policy of developing a system based on Primary Health Care principles will require the training of more than 16,000 VHWs during the next decade. In the Kilombero District, one group of VHWs was trained according to the guidelines of the National Programme of the Ministry of Health, and another group followed the training programme of the Kilombero Project, based on the Swiss Tropical Institute Field Laboratory. The training scheme of the Kilombero project cost almost 80% less for one VHW, largely because it depended on on-the-spot training by local staff.

Liver disease in rural Tanzania--a diagnostic approach.

In a prospective study on the aetiology of liver disease and its diagnostic approach in a District hospital in rural Tanzania, 48 consecutive patients with evidence of liver disorders were investigated by physical examination, biochemical tests, laparoscopy and histology. Liver cirrhosis (posthepatic, alcoholic) was found in 31%; non cirrhotic alcoholic liver disease in 15%; viral, bacterial and protozoal liver disorders in 33%, and neoplastic liver changes in 21% of all patients. Clinical impression alone coincided with the final diagnosis in 40% of all cases.

A longitudinal study on relations of retinol with parasitic infections and the immune response in children of Kikwawila village, Tanzania.

From 1982 to 1984 170 children of Kikwawila village (Kilombero district, Tanzania) were followed for nutritional (anthropometric measures, hematocrit, serum retinol, prealbumin, and zinc concentrations), parasitological (malaria parasitemia, urinary schistosomiasis, intestinal parasites) and immunological characteristics. Between 2.9% and 12.

Longitudinal study on the health status of children in a rural Tanzanian community: comparison of community-based clinical examinations, the diseases seen at village health posts and the perception of health problems by the population.

Standardised household interviews among adults and children, open-ended questionnaires, and clinical examinations administered during cross-sectional health status surveys, as well as the registers of village health posts (VHP), were used to assess the pattern of health problems of a rural community in southeastern Tanzania, and their results compared. All four approaches gave very similar results for the two major health problems (fever/malaria and abdominal pain or discomfort) which were mentioned by both children and adults. The parasitological data from the cross-sectional surveys also revealed hyperendemic P.