Impact of Improved Cookstoves on the Level of Household Exposure to CO and PM2.5 in Sub-Saharan Cities: The Case of the City of Ouagadougou

Air pollution is one of the major global threats to human health. In Burkina Faso, more than 80% of the population uses solid fuels as the main source of cooking energy. This paper reports a comparative study on the exposure of household to the carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5) emitted by improved cookstoves (ICS) or traditional cookstoves (TCS). A cross-sectional study was conducted in the city of Ouagadougou for 4 months during the rainy season (July to October) in households with an outdoor kitchen. The investigation involved 92 households where air pollutants, such as PM2.5 and CO were measured with Indoor Air Pollution Meters (IAP meter). These measurements were focused on the concentration levels of the pollutants during cooking. The results of this study show high levels of PM2.5 and CO for all type of stoves. Wood stoves led to higher PM2.5 and lower CO emissions than charcoal stoves. ICS reduce emissions of indoor air pollutants compared to TCS. This reduction raised up to 82% for PM2.5 and 37% for CO. The analysis of the data measured with the student test (t-test) shows that there is a statistically significant difference between the average values of the concentrations of the pollutants emitted with the TCS compared to ICS, except for CO emissions measured on multi-pot sizes cookstoves (MM). This study shows that the concentrations of indoor air pollutants are very high regardless of the type of cookstoves used. The CO exposure obtained varies from 119.10 to 362.72 μg/m3 for 15-minute and 10.83 - 55.11 μg/m3 for 1-hour exposure. The exposure in PM2.5 varies from 4762 to 16,257 μg/m3 for 15-minute and 106.63 to 1597 μg/m3 for 1-hour of exposure. It was noted that the CO exposure levels obtained over 15-minute of exposure are 1.36 to 4.15 times higher than the WHO recommendation and 1.8 times higher for an exposure time of one hour. This means that women in charge of cooking have a high risk of exposure to air pollutants.

Simulation and Evaluation of Dust Emission with Polair3D-SIREAM Model over West Africa Focused on Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)

The study of air pollution is recent in West Africa. There is a lack of data on air pollution. However, some studies conducted in West Africa show that air quality is a concern. Population growth and massive vehicles imports are contributing to the deterioration of this air quality. In this work, we present the modelling of desert aerosols using a CTM Polair3D-SIREAM. The objective is to evaluate the ability of Polair3D-SIREAM to reproduce observations of PM10 and Aerosol Optical Thicknesses (AOT). A simulation with Polair3D-SIREAM was carried out in West Africa, focused on Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) for 2007. The model of Marticorena and Bergametti (1995), MB95, was used to estimate desert aerosols emissions. The total emission of dust modelled is 52.2 Tg. For the evaluation of PM10, the simulated averages remained within the same orders of magnitude as the observed averages. Correlations are low in all the observation sites. The other indicators are similar to those found by Schmechtig et al. (2011). Performance criteria of Boylan and Russel (2006) are met for the observation sites of Ouagadougou and Ilorin (Nigeria). For the AOTs, the correlations are significantly improved, in particular, at the sites of Ouagadougou and Ilorin. Performance criteria of Boylan are met for all observation sites. However, the performance goals are only achieved for Ouagadougou and Ilorin.

Detection of Campylobacter sp. from Poultry Feces in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Background: Campylobacter contamination in poultry and poultry product has been reported worldwide. The present study aims to determine the prevalence of Campylobacter in poultry feces using selective enrichment Bolton broth and multiplex PCR. Method: Two methods were used in this study: the first was direct plating of poultry feces into mCCDA agar plates. The second, three antibiotics were used at different concentrations to add in Bolton broth supplemented. These antibiotics were Rifampicin (Oxoid, Nepean, Ontario) with 10 mg/L, colistin (Oxoid, Nepean, Ontario) with 1 mg/mL and 2 mg/mL;trimethoprim (Oxoid, Nepean, Ontario) with 10 mg/L. The colonies with typical campylobacter morphology on blood agar (little, red and ring colonies) were further identified to the species level by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: The addition of colistin (2 mg/mL) to the Bolton broth with selective supplements enhanced the selective isolation of Campylobacter strains. Out of the 52 feces samples, 18 (34.61%) were positive for campylobacter and direct plating on mCCDA 11 (21.15%) campylobacter strains (p < 0.05). The PCR results have shown that 17 (94.45%) of the campylobacter strains detected belonged to Campylobacter coli and 1 (5.55%) strain to Campylobacter jejuni. Conclusion: Although it is known to be difficult to isolate Campylobacter from animal feces samples, this study shows that antibiotic selective pressure improves the isolation efficiency of Campylobacter from poultry feces.

Assessment of Pollution Levels of Suspended Particulate Matter on an Hourly and a Daily Time Scale in West African Cities: Case Study of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)

In Western countries, research works on air quality have reinforced in recent years because of the links between the level of particulate pollution in numerous cities and the appearing of various health disorders including cardio-respiratory pathologies, acute bronchopneumonia, lung cancer, etc. In sub-Saharan Africa countries, particularly Burkina Faso, there is very few similar research. In the present work, the pollution levels of airborne particle in the city of Ouagadougou have been assessed through two campaigns of in situ measurements of suspended particulate matter concentrations. These measurements which have concerned PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 were performed using a portable device (AEROCET531S) at nine sites in 2018 and at ten sites in 2019. These sites are located on roadside, administrative services, secondary education establishments and outlying districts. The results show that: 1) the PM1 concentrations values presented no significant variation between days, seasons or sampling sites;2) the 24-hour PM2.5 concentrations often exceeding WHO recommended concentrations and, 3) the 24-hour PM10 concentrations exceed WHO recommended concentrations regardless of the season or the sampling site. In indeed, the average 24-hour concentrations are 20 ± 4, 87 ± 16 and 951 ± 266 μg·m−3 for the PM1, PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. They are 17 ± 3, 29 ± 5 and 158 ± 43 μg·m−3, respectively, in 2018 dry season and, 12 ± 1, 22 ± 9 and 187 ± 67 μg·m−3, respectively, in 2019 rainy season.