Raw fish consumption in liver fluke endemic areas in rural southern Laos》.pdf

Acta Tropica 127 (2013) 105–111 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Acta Tropica j o u rn al h o m e p a g e : w w w. elsev /locate/actatropica Raw fish consumption in liver fluke endemic areas in rural southern Laos Vilavanh Xayaseng a,b,c , Khampheng Phongluxa a,b,c , Peter van Eeuwijk c,d , Kongsap Akkhavong a , Peter Odermatt b,c,∗ a National Institute of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic b Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland c University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland d Institute of Social Anthropology, Basel, Switzerland a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Consumption of raw or insufficiently cooked fish is a major public health concern in Southeast Asia, and Received 7 January 2013 in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), in particular. We aimed to assess the knowledge, atti- Received in revised form 27 March 2013 tudes, perceptions and practices of villagers in liver fluke endemic areas related to raw fish preparation, Accepted 28 March 2013 consumption and its health consequences. In February 2010, eight focus group discussions (FGDs, 35 Available online 6 April 2013 men and 37 women total) and direct observations were conducted in four randomly selected villages in Saravane District, Saravane Province (Lao PDR). FGDs distilled the knowledge, attitude