Mitigating climate changes on health in Burkina Faso

Project summary

Due to climate changes, Burkina Faso (BF) has experienced a continual decrease in annual rainfall during the last decades causing food scarcity across the country. To mitigate this, the BF government has established agricultural production and growth centers (“agro-poles”) around existing dams. However, these centers impact on population health, as many water-related diseases (WRDs) are climate-sensitive. Moreover, the attractiveness of the agro-poles increases migration towards these centers, exacerbating more people to the risk of exposure to WRDs.
In order to ensure an acceptable balance between the need for intensive food production and control of WRDs, better understanding of the interactions between climate change and human pathogens in a man-made environment is needed. Furthermore, it is essential to explore factors that strengthen resilience of the population against climate sensitive WRDs following an artificial change.
This project will study the burden of climate sensitive WRDs such as malaria, dengue and schistosomiasis and factors affecting resilience of the population living in the agro-pole of Soum in Nanoro utilizing the HDSS platform. Using a mixed-method approach, we will study human population risk of/resilience to WRDs by exploring: (i) Risk and burden of WRDs, (ii) Socio-economic and cultural factors and (iii) Climatic and environmental parameters. Findings will support the development of a spatial-temporal model to predict the risks of WRDs and the impact of climate change in the agro-pole study site and beyond. Finally, the project will formulate recommendations for interventions to strengthen the population’s resilience to climate change involving community and health system actors. The project will build research capacity by technology transfer and training of 2 PhD students and 1 Postdoc and will furthermore secure that findings are disseminated/communicated to national and international stakeholders, as well as in high-ranking journals.

Outputs

First year report:
The official starting date was 01 April 2021. All partnership agreements were signed by then and introductory on-line meetings were conducted from January to April 2021. A “Teams” platform was established for all partners for easy communication and storage of relevant documents.
The launch meeting was held 15 June 2021 on-line (Zoom) with participation of all South and North collaborators.
Activities to date have included a visit to Ouagadougou (4-5 October 2021) by Northern partners (Helle Samuelsen, Helle Hansson Smedegaard and PI Pascal Magnussen) to plan the project and meet collaborators form Burkina Faso.
During 23-24 May 2022 Michael Alifrangis visited CLIMSA in Ouagadougou and Nanoro (CRUN) to discuss progress and PhD recruitment.
Ethical clearance was obtained, laboratory and field equipment was procured and shipped to Burkina Faso, and field study protocols were developed.
A call for the WP1 PhD was announced in March 2022, 5 candidates applied (four males, one female). All five were interviewed on-line and Miss Adidjata Ouedraogo was offered the PhD fellowship and will proceed to develop her proposal and join the Nanoro team in July 2022. The selection process for a third PhD fellowship for WP2 will start in July 2022.
Demographic, entomological and parasitological fieldwork started end March 2022.