Community Intervention to Prevent Nipah Spillover

Overview

Several human Nipah virus (NiV) outbreaks have occurred in Bangladesh since 2001with 71% case fatality. Outbreak investigations have repeatedly identified drinking fresh date palm sap as a risk factor for NiV transmission. Bats are the reservoir of NiV and infected bats can shed virus through both saliva and urine and can contaminate the raw sap. The virus can transmit to humans through ingestion of contaminated sap. To interrupt bats access to the sap, sap harvesters (gachhis) occasionally use skirts make by local materials. These skirts have been found to be effective to interrupt bats' access to the sap. As an indirect effect of the community level skirt promotion, some people stopped drinking raw sap. When trees have skirts, bats cannot access the sap and when people do not drink sap, they are at much lower risk of contracting Nipah virus. The purpose of this study is to design, implement and evaluate behavior change interventions to prevent human consumption of NiV contaminated sap through reducing raw sap consumption from unprotected trees in a district of the NiV affected regions in Bangladesh.

Purpose: Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a behavior change communication (BCC) intervention in changing raw sap consumption behavior to prevent human consumption of NiV contaminated sap from unprotected trees in the districts of Rajbari (Phase one) and Natore (Phase two), in NiV-affected regions in Bangladesh. Methods: The research study will be conducted in two phases. Phase one: We will conduct a BCC program to test the effectiveness of a single message of "do not drink raw sap". We will conduct a baseline survey as pre-intervention assessment in two intervention upazillas in Rajbari District and two control upazillas in Kushtia District. The intervention will consist of community meetings in each of the intervention area villages as well as an awareness campaign through closed circuit television in selected village tea stalls. We will conduct endline survey to as a post intervention assessment in the same upazillas in Rajbari and Kushtia Districts. Main outcome measures/variables: Proportion of people who continue drinking raw date palm sap. Phase two If a substantial proportion of the population continues to consume raw date palm sap even after implementation of the "avoid drinking sap" intervention, and the Government of Bangladesh agrees, we will conduct a BCC program to test the effectiveness of a risk reduction approach, encouraging people to avoid drinking sap, but telling them that if they do, to reduce risk they should only drink sap that comes from trees protected by banas. In addition to community meetings to convey this message to the general public, we will meet with gachhis and tree owners to encourage them to use banas. We will conduct a baseline survey as pre-intervention assessment in both intervention and control areas in Natore and Gopalganj Districts respectively. The intervention will consist of meetings with gachhis, tree owners and the community in each of the intervention area villages as well as an awareness campaign through closed circuit television in village tea stalls. We will conduct endline survey to as a post intervention assessment in both intervention (Natore District) and control areas (Gopalganj District). Main outcome measures/variables: Proportion of people who stop drinking sap or who drink sap from skirt protected trees.