Introduction:Diarrhoea remains the second most serious health problem among children below five years old in Solomon Islands and is one of the leading causes of infant mortality,which caused about one in every ten children dying before the age of five years.Globally,around 6 million children (＜5 years) suffer from diarrhoea each year.Because of lack of previous studies,this study aims to assess the predictors of knowledge and practice of caregivers towards diarrhoea among under-five children in Mataniko informal settlements in Honiara,Solomon Islands,2016.Methods:This quantitative study was conducted at three randomly selected settlements in Honiara,Solomon Islands from June to July 2016.This study was conducted among both male and female caregivers who had children under five years of age,were aged 18 and over,live in Solomon Islands and were willing to participate in the study.A validated structured questionnaire was used to collect the data based on a 2-week recall of diarrhoea episodes.To avoid double-counting,each surveyed household was geo-referenced using global positioning system (GPS).The collected data were entered and analysed using SPSS (version 23.0) and descriptive and analytical statistics.P＜0.05 was considered as statistically significant.This study was approved by relevant ethical committees.Results:A total of 205 caregivers with at least one child under-five years participated in the study.The mean ages of caregivers and the under-five children were (30.7+8.2) years and (2.6+1.5) years,respectively.Among 205 caregivers,94 of them had reported that their children (＜5 years) had suffered with at least one episode of diarrhoea within the last 2 weeks prior to the survey.This gave a prevalence rate of 45.9％.The caregiver's knowledge about the causes (99.0％) and prevention (98.0％) of under-five diarrhoea was extremely high.Nevertheless,less than half had regularly practiced essential hygiene habits.The factors which appeared to be significantly associated with under-five diarrhoea were irregular hand washing (odds ratio [OR] 2.07,95％ confidence interval [CI]:1.12-3.81,P=0.020),inappropriate methods of disposing of children's fecal waste (OR 1.88,95％ CIL 1.06-3.33,P=0.030),and using the river for bathing (OR 1.83,95％ CI:1.04-3.23,P=0.036),and laundry (OR 2.17,95％ CI:1.23-3.84,P=0.008).Conclusion:Diarrhoea is a major public health problem among children below five years in Mataniko informal settlements.To address these exposures,relevant programs and projects should be designed,especially in areas like family planning,household economic allocation and political commitment.Awareness and advocacy programs on birth spacing,food hygiene and potential health risks about the river should be ongoing at the community level.

Introduction: Dengue virus serotype-3 caused a large community-level outbreak in Fiji in 2013 and 2014. We aimed to characterize the demographic features of affected individuals and to determine dengue mortality during the outbreak. Methods: All laboratory-confirmed dengue cases and deaths were included in this study. Incidence and mortality were calculated according to demographic variables. Results: A total of 5221 laboratory-confirmed cases of dengue were included in this analysis. The majority of patients were male (54.5%) and indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) (53.5%). The median age was 25 years old. The overall incidence was 603 per 100 000 population. The age-specific incidence was highest among people between 20 and 24 years of age (1057 per 100 000) for both sexes. The major urban and peri-urban areas of Suva and Rewa subdivisions reported the highest incidence of >1000 cases per 100 000 population. A total of 48 deaths were included in this analysis. The majority of dengue-related deaths occurred in males (62.5%) and in the iTaukei (60.4%) population. The median age at death was 35 years old. The overall dengue-related deaths was estimated to be 5.5 deaths per 100 000 population. Dengue mortality was higher for males (6.8 per 100 000) than females. The highest age- and sex-specific mortality of 18 per 100 000 population was among males aged 65 years and older. Discussion Dengue morbidity and mortality were highest among males, indigenous people and residents of urban and peri-urban locations. Effective and integrated public health strategies are needed to ensure early detection and appropriate outbreak control measures.