Provider and User Acceptability of Integrated Treatment for the Control of Malaria and Helminths in Saraya, South-Eastern Senegal.

Integration of vertical programs for the control of malaria, schistosomiasis, and soil-transmitted helminthiasis has been recommended to achieve elimination of malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTD) by 2030. This qualitative study was conducted within the context of a randomized controlled trial to explore the perceptions and views of parents/caregivers of at-risk children and healthcare providers to determine their acceptability of the integrated malaria-helminth treatment approach. Randomly selected parents/caregivers of children enrolled in the trial, healthcare providers, trial staff, malaria, and NTD program managers were interviewed using purpose-designed topic guides. Transcripts obtained from the interviews were coded and common themes identified using content analysis were triangulated. Fifty-seven study participants comprising 26 parents/caregivers, 10 study children aged ≥ 10 years, 15 trial staff, four healthcare providers, and two managers from the Senegal Ministry of Health were interviewed. Thirty-eight of the participants (66.7%) were males, and their ages ranged from 10 to 65 years. Overall, the integrated malaria-helminth treatment approach was considered acceptable, but the study participants expressed concerns about the taste, smell, and side effects associated with amodiaquine and praziquantel in the combination package. Reluctance to accept the medications was also observed among children aged 10 to 14 years due to peer influence and gender-sensitive cultural beliefs. Addressing concerns about the taste and smell of amodiaquine and praziquantel is needed to optimize the uptake of the integrated treatment program. Also, culturally appropriate strategies need to be put in place to cater for the inclusion of children aged 10 to 14 years in this approach.

Traditional Healing and Law in Contemporary Senegal: Legitimacies, Normativities and Practices.

In this paper, we chart the context in which contemporary legal debates around traditional healing in Senegal unfold, pointing in particular to the type of power-knowledge relations that are at stake in both the current legal status-quo, and legal changes proposed in 2017. We interrogate the struggles over legitimacy and recognition that are at play in these processes, and the ways in which different actors relate to both formal legal rules, and more fluid forms of legalities, in which imaginaries of the law, and negotiations with the law, translate into everyday practices. We underline how legal and scientific discourses are mobilised to draw the opportunities and boundaries offered to different healing agents, and to organise their respective authority. Traditional healers overlap with modern health practices, while retaining their own ontologies and claims to legitimacy while representatives of the biomedical professions insist that they should have some oversight over the regulation of all healers. As negotiations continue over the possibility for the state to regulate traditional healing, everyday legal choreographies define the relative roles, possibilities and precarity of different healing agents.