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Following a change of government in 2010, the Hungarian local government system underwent a period of significant transformation. The question of how it is viewed and the effects it may have are currently being debated. However, the fact that 2011 saw a reform of a more than a 20-year-old unyielding system seems difficult to argue with. Laced with the democratic ideal of self-government, the Hungarian regime change of 1989 resulted in a fragmented local government system with a considerable degree of management authority. The local government model opted for by Hungary, which can indeed be dubbed as the champion of decentralisation, could function uninterruptedly until 2010 with minor adjustments. The centralising effort of the government had already become clear beyond a shadow of a doubt before the adoption of the Cardinal Act or the Fundamental Law (2011) itself. The reorganisation of territorial public administration was the first series of measures which allowed to make inferences about the public administration system and the forthcoming centralisation of local governments.

Aristide Romaric Bado,1,2 Hermann Badolo,3,4 Lamoussa Robert Zoma5 1Institute for Research in Health Sciences (IRSS), Biomedical and Public Health Department, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; 2West African Health Organisation (WAHO), Demography and Sexual and Reproductive Health Project, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; 3Institut National de Santé Publique (INSP)/Centre MURAZ, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; 4University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa; 5Davycas International, Ouagadougou, Burkina FasoCorrespondence: Aristide Romaric BadoInstitute for Research in Health Sciences (IRSS), Biomedical and Public Health Department, 03 BP 7192 Ouagadougou 03, Burkina FasoEmail arbado@gmail.comIntroduction: In Burkina Faso, despite several efforts to improve contraceptive uptake, contraceptive prevalence remains low. Studies suggest that the low levels of family planning (FP) practices can be partially attributed to the low participation of men in reproductive health programmes. Involving men in FP programmes in Burkina Faso is thus imperative, but the obstacles to this are poorly documented. This study has two objectives to explore the perspectives of men and women on barriers to contraceptive use and to identify the strategies to increase male involvement in family planning.Methods: It is a qualitative study using 20 focus groups and 52 in-depth individual interviews in two regions (North Central Region and Central East Region) with a sample of 29 adult men and 23 women who were married and had children or not. Interviews were conducted in Moore (the national language commonly spoken in both regions). All interviews were recorded and transcribed into French using Microsoft Word. Then, content analysis was carried out using the constant comparison method to identify the major themes.Results: The results show that men’s attitudes are still a significant barrier to women’s use of modern contraceptives. The reasons women do not use contraception and men do not adhere to FP programmes include lack of method knowledge, negative beliefs and perceptions about modern contraceptive methods, and the side effects of contraceptives. Cultural norms and preferences for large families are also common barriers to FP. However, the results showed that men’s awareness of FP, communication between spouses, and access to FP services can promote men’s adherence to FP programmes in the Centre-East and Centre-North regions of Burkina Faso.Conclusion: Efforts should be made to improve educational standards, especially for men, and reorient FP services to make them more accessible to men.Keywords: involvement of men, family planning, barriers, contraceptive use, Burkina Faso

The significant reduction in the level of child mortality in both developed and developing countries over recent decades has led to an improvement in children’s health. The implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the health programs needed to reduce child mortality require determination and an understanding of the factors responsible for this reduction. This study investigated factors that have contributed to the recent improvement in the survival of children under five, focusing on the contribution of preventive health care in improving children’s survival rates in Burkina Faso. The data used come from baseline and end-line surveys designed to evaluate the impact of performance-based financing (PBF) on health programs in Burkina Faso. Using time-series for health districts and child-level logistic regression models, we estimated the effect of preventive health care, as summarized by the changes in the composite coverage index (CCI), on under-five child survival of temporal trends and covariates at the household, maternal, and child levels. At the health district level, a unit increase in standardized CCI was associated with an improvement in under-five child survival after adjustment for survey period effects. The linear regression analysis showed that a standardized unit increase in CCI was associated with an increase in the percentage of children under five who survive. At the child level, the logistic regression showed that a skilled attendant at birth (SBA), wealth index, and mother’s parity were associated with under-five children’s survival, after adjustment for the survey period effects and a set of household, maternal, and child-level covariates. Preventive health care is important in improving under-five children’s survival, whereas the effects of economic growth in Burkina Faso remain weak and inconsistent. Improved coverage of preventive health care interventions are likely to contribute to further reductions in under-five mortality in Burkina Faso.

Abstract Background In 2023, Burkina Faso experienced the largest dengue epidemic ever in Africa. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of symptomatic, subclinical, and asymptomatic dengue and determine the associated factors among adult contacts of dengue in the Central Region, Burkina Faso. Methods This cross-sectional study included contacts of dengue probable cases through cluster sampling in 2022–2023. These suspected cases that tested positive were identified from the five health facilities (Pissy CMA, Saaba CM, Kossodo CMA, Samandin CM, and Marcoussis CSPS) that reported the highest number of cases in 2021 per district. All participants underwent dengue and malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDT). Samples positive for non-structural 1 protein antigen (AgNS1) and/or immunoglobulin M (IgM) were tested for serotype detection by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Binary logistic regression was done to identify the determinants of asymptomatic, subclinical, and symptomatic dengue among contacts of probable dengue cases. Results A total of 484 contacts were included, mostly in 2023 (75.2%). Most participants were females (58.6%), residing (24.3%) and passing their daytime (23.1%) in Saaba. The overall prevalence of dengue was estimated at 15.1% [95% confidence interval (CI): 12.0–18.6%], representing cases not seeking care in hospitals. Asymptomatic cases represented 2.9% (95% CI: 1.6–4.8%). Subclinical and symptomatic cases accounted for 6.0% (95% CI: 4.1–8.5%) and 6.2% (95% CI: 4.2–8.7%), respectively. Of the 58 samples tested by RT-PCR, 10 were confirmed for serotype 3 in 2023. Malaria cases were estimated at 5.6% (95% CI: 3.7–8.0%). After adjustment, participants claiming that a virus transmits dengue were likelier to have asymptomatic dengue [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 7.1, 95% CI: 2.4–21.0]. From the multivariable analysis, subclinical dengue was statistically associated with being included in the study in 2023 (aOR = 30.2, 95% CI: 2.0–455.5) and spending the daytime at Arrondissement 4 (aOR = 11.5, 95% CI: 1.0–131.0). After adjustment, symptomatic dengue was associated with living less than 50 m away from cultivated land (aOR = 2.8, 95% CI: 1.1–6.9) and living less than 50 m from a stretch of water (aOR = 0.1, 95% CI: 0.0–0.6). Conclusions The overall burden of dengue among populations not seeking care in hospitals was quite high, with few asymptomatic cases. Efforts to manage dengue cases should also target non-hospital cases and raise population awareness. The 2023 epidemic could be due to dengue virus (DENV)-3. Graphical Abstract

IntroductionThis study aimed to identify the determinants that influence the use of DMPA-SC/Sayana Press among women who use modern contraceptive methods in Burkina Faso.MethodsThis study used secondary data obtained from the 2021 Burkina Faso Demographic and Health Survey (EDSBF). The dependent variable is the use of DMPA-SC among women aged 15–49 who employ modern contraceptive methods. The descriptive analysis used percentages to describe the study variables. The Pearson chi-square test was used to assess the associations between the explanatory variables and the study variable of interest. Bivariate logistic regression was used to examine the crude odds ratios of each explanatory variable with respect to the dependent variable. The multivariate model was used to determine the net effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable. The significance levels were defined at p

Abstract Tandem repeat genetic profiles used in forensic applications varies between populations. Despite the diversity and security issues in the Sahel that require the identification of victims (soldiers and civilians), Burkina Faso (BF) remains understudied. To fill this information gap, 396 unrelated individuals from BF were genotyped using a MICROREADER 21 ID System kit. All 20 short tandem repeat (STR) loci tested passed the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) test. The combined powers of exclusion for duos (CPE duos) and trios (CPE trios) for the 20 tested loci were 0.9999998 and 0.9999307, respectively. The probability that two individuals would share the same DNA profiles among the BF population was 9.80898 × 10–26. For the X-chromosome STR analysis, 292 individuals were included in this study using a MICROREADER 19X Direct ID System kit. Among the 19 loci, no significant deviations from HWE test were observed in female samples after Bonferroni correction (p