[Impact of health education programs on the control of urinary bilharziasis in Niger].

The objective of this study was to assess the effect of health education in the control of bilharziasis, as a part of an investigation on anti-urinary bilharziasis campaign in Niger. We carried out a survey in two groups of endemic villages on the Niger, one group of villages where there are health education campaigns (target villages) and a control village (no education campaign). Five hundred and seventy-seven people were interviewed in the area. The bilharziasis project has been the main source of information on bilharziasis of people in the project zone. The awareness of measures to fight against bilharziasis has been moderate. Indeed, 46.6% of people interrogated in the project area couldn't cite any means for containing bilharziasis. In the area of intervention, 41.5% of people interrogated were unaware of the intervention of an intermediate host in the transmission of the urinary bilharziasis. The notion of reinfestation remains little known. Behaviours that favour the illness were ignored by 1/3 of people interrogated in the project area. However, there was an increase in knowledge about the illness in the program zone in comparison with the control area. Despite the increase in knowledge level, changes in behaviour in relation to the illness remained low. Risky behaviour continued in about 2/3 of people interrogated. Only 33% of persons of the project area declared having adopted at least a single good behaviour. Changes of behaviour are slow to take place. Activities of health education must be sustained throughout a long period of time for sustainable profits of control actions to occur.