Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 30, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 1, 2018 - Jun 15, 2018
Date Accepted: Aug 3, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Disease Burden on Health Facilities in Governorates South of Karbala During the Arbaeenia Mass Gathering in Iraq in 2014: Cross-Sectional Study
Background:
Millions of Iraqi pilgrims travel annually from the southern governorates to Karbala and pass through Thiqar, Muthana, and Diwania Governorates to join the Arbaeenia mass gathering event. During this event, participants are at high risk for diseases and death and stifle local health care resources. In addition, the mass gathering causes considerable burden on health facilities in the hosting localities.
Objective:
This study aims to estimate the disease burden on health facilities caused by the pilgrims passing through Thiqar, Muthana, and Diwania Governorates en route to Karbala in Iraq.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study was conducted on all health facilities in three governorates (Thiqar, Muthana, and Diwania) situated along the southern way to Karbala from Basra. The study started on December 11, 2014, and ended on December 24, 2014. The morbidity and mortality were collected from surveillance logbooks and death registers. Drug purchase data were obtained from the personnel in charge of the pharmacies. The study period was divided into three phases on the basis of the timing of the mass gathering event: pre-event, the event, and postevent.
Results:
There were 884,834 incidents reported during the study. The majority of incidents were reported during the event phase (95%) and were attended mostly at mobile clinics (77%). The average daily incidents during the pre-event, event, and postevent phases were 4300, 56,040, and 4548 incidents, respectively. Musculoskeletal disorders were the most common illness reported (55%). The average number of daily deaths was 43, 36, and 45 during the pre-event, event, and postevent, respectively, and these values did not differ significantly. Cardiovascular diseases (43.5%), injuries (29.8%), and respiratory illnesses (12%) were the leading causes of deaths. Approximately US $1.3 million was spent on drug purchases during this mass gathering in the three governorates.
Conclusions:
The Arbaeenia mass gathering causes a tremendous disease and economic burden on governorates that pilgrims pass through to attend this mass gathering in Karbala. Although Iraq’s Ministry of Health is aware of the high burden of this mass gathering on the health facilities in these governorates, more work is needed to ensure quality services during the event.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.