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"Mauritania"
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A mixed effect hierarchical analysis to quantify variation on childhood diarrhea prevalence in Mauritania: evidence from the Mauritania demographic and health survey 2019–2021
Background
Diarrhea remains a major global health concern, particularly among children under five. This study aims to assess the prevalence and determinants of diarrhea in children under five in Mauritania using nationally representative data.
Methods
A secondary analysis of the Mauritania Demographic and Health Survey (2019–2021) was conducted using multilevel logistic regression to identify individual- and community-level determinants of diarrhea among children under five. The study included a weighted sample of 11,007 women aged 15–49 years for childhood diarrhea prevalence.
Result
The prevalence of childhood diarrhea was 13.8% (95% CI: 13.1–14.5). Higher odds of diarrhea were observed among children of parents with no education (AOR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.07–1.52) and primary education (AOR = 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03–1.51), those living in rural areas (AOR = 1.94; 95% CI: 1.77–2.14), children of working mothers (AOR = 1.25; 95% CI: 1.08–1.44), and children born small (AOR = 1.56; 95% CI: 1.02–2.38) or smaller than average (AOR = 2.06; 95% CI: 1.34–3.18). Lower odds were found among children aged 2–3 years (AOR = 0.56; 95% CI: 0.47–0.68) and 4–5 years (AOR = 0.37; 95% CI: 0.29–0.47), vaccinated children (AOR = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.33–0.71), and those from households with toilet facilities (AOR = 0.29; 95% CI: 0.08–0.54). Regional disparities were noted, with higher risk in Gorgol (AOR = 1.52; 95% CI: 1.14–2.02) and Tagant (AOR = 1.46; 95% CI: 1.06–2.01) compared with Hodh Echargui.
Conclusion
This study identified several individual and community-level factors associated with childhood diarrhea in Mauritania. Interventions should prioritize improving sanitation access, parental education, maternal support, and vaccination coverage, particularly in high-risk rural regions. Strengthening integrated child health programs targeting these determinants will be essential to reducing the burden of diarrhea among children under five.
Journal Article
Investigation of unexplored kaolin occurrences in southern Mauritania and preliminary assessment of possible applications
Non-metallic raw materials are largely unexplored in many African countries. In an attempt to reduce this knowledge gap, kaolin occurrences in three promising regions of southern Mauritania were examined. The aim of the paper is to describe the occurrences and characterize the material in terms of mineralogy and potential technical use in the ceramics industry. The kaolins are geologically associated with various sedimentary rock units in either the Coastal Basin (Kaedi), the Mauritanide Belt (Hassi Abyad) or the Taoudeni Basin (Nema). Geochemical data show Al2O3 contents of between 9% and 38% (corresponding to 23-96% kaolinite). Samples from the Hassi Abyad and Kaedi regions have greater kaolinite contents on average and were further investigated mineralogically. The kaolin from the Nema region contained less kaolinite (<50 mass%). The region is also less accessible and hence is not considered further in this study. X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and infrared spectroscopy confirmed the geochemically calculated kaolinite contents of the kaolins and identified quartz, anatase and goethite as the remaining major mineral constituents. The degree of structural disorder of the kaolinites (determined by infrared spectroscopy) is generally greater in the Kaedi occurrences than at Hassi Abyad. Ceramic tests proved that all of these kaolin raw materials might be used for the production of ceramics, and some may even be used for fine ceramics. From an economic point of view, the Hassi Abyad deposit is interesting in terms of its quality and reserves, aspects that will be addressed in detail in a follow-up study.
Journal Article
Variability and Trends in Dust Storm Frequency on Decadal Timescales: Climatic Drivers and Human Impacts
Dust storms present numerous hazards to human society and are particularly significant to people living in the Dust Belt which stretches from the Sahara across the Middle East to northeast Asia. This paper presents a review of dust storm variability and trends in frequency on decadal timescales from three Dust Belt settlements with long-term (>50 years) meteorological records: Nouakchott, Mauritania; Zabol, Iran, and Minqin, China. The inhabitants of each of these settlements have experienced a decline in dust storms in recent decades, since the late 1980s at Nouakchott, since 2004 at Zabol, and since the late 1970s at Minqin. The roles of climatic variables and human activities are assessed in each case, as drivers of periods of high dust storm frequency and subsequent declines in dust emissions. Both climatic and human variables have been important but overall the balance of research conclusions indicates natural processes (precipitation totals, wind strength) have had greater impact than human action, in the latter case both in the form of mismanagement (abandoned farmland, water management schemes) and attempts to reduce wind erosion (afforestation projects). Understanding the drivers of change in dust storm dynamics at the local scale is increasingly important for efforts to mitigate dust storm hazards as climate change projections suggest that the global dryland area is likely to expand in the twenty-first century, along with an associated increase in the risk of drought and dust emissions.
Journal Article
Local drivers of Rift Valley fever outbreaks in Mauritania: A one health approach combining ecological, vector, host and livestock movement data
Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a vector-borne zoonotic disease with recurrent epidemic and epizootic outbreaks in Mauritania caused by the RVF virus (RVFV). In recent years, outbreaks have occurred with increasingly shorter inter-epidemic periods. The primary objective of this study was to utilise a high-resolution spatiotemporal model and identify the drivers and ecological suitability for RVFV infections, as well as areas for RVF outbreaks and emergence in humans and animals, respectively, in Mauritania. We used geolocated data from 2019 to 2023 for modelling, including human RVF cases confirmed by viral RNA detection, animal cases identified through serology or viral RNA detection, and mosquito samples in which the virus was detected by RNA analysis. Negative RVFV results were used as absence (or background) data to represent an environmental contrast between places with and without cases. Duplicates of occurrences at the exact location were kept, as multiple cases in the same place indicate a potentially higher risk. The main drivers of RVFV infection were the precipitation of the current and the preceding month of the outbreaks, followed by the average daily temperature of the current month of the outbreaks. August, September, and October were the most ecologically favourable months for RVFV infection, starting in the country’s southeastern regions and expanding to the entire southern area by September and October. The RVF outbreak potential was highest in the wet season, between August and October, in most of the south and western parts of the country. Although the RVF outbreak potential is substantially reduced during the dry season, some smaller areas in Mauritania have a relatively high outbreak potential throughout the year, and some of these areas are also located further north. These results can be used to improve sentinel active surveillance and establish an early warning model for RVFV infections in Mauritania, enabling the setting of appropriate control measures to prevent future RVF outbreaks and minimise human and animal losses.
Journal Article
Mapping the physico-chemical properties of mineral dust in western Africa: mineralogical composition
In the last few years, several ground-based and airborne field campaigns have allowed the exploration of the properties and impacts of mineral dust in western Africa, one of the major emission and transport areas worldwide. In this paper, we explore the synthesis of these observations to provide a large-scale quantitative view of the mineralogical composition and its variability according to source region and time after transport. This work reveals that mineral dust in western Africa is a mixture of clays, quartz, iron and titanium oxides, representing at least 92% of the dust mass. Calcite ranged between 0.3 and 8.4% of the dust mass, depending on the origin. Our data do not show a systematic dependence of the dust mineralogical composition on origin; this is to be the case as, in most of the instances, the data represent the composition of the atmospheric burden after 1–2 days after emission, when air masses mix and give rise to a more uniform dust load. This has implications for the representation of the mineral dust composition in regional and global circulation models and in satellite retrievals. Iron oxides account for 58 ± 7% of the mass of elemental Fe and for between 2 and 5% of the dust mass. Most of them are composed of goethite, representing between 52 and 78% of the iron oxide mass. We estimate that titanium oxides account for 1–2% of the dust mass, depending on whether the dust is of Saharan or Sahelian origin. The mineralogical composition is a critical parameter for estimating the radiative and biogeochemical impact of mineral dust. The results regarding dust composition have been used to estimate the optical properties as well as the iron fractional solubility of Saharan and Sahelian dust. Data presented in this paper are provided in numerical form upon email request while they are being turned into a public database, the Dust-Mapped Archived Properties (DUST-MAP), which is an open repository for compositional data from other source regions in Africa and worldwide.
Journal Article