It was a great News to our team at the Medical Research Council Gambia at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MRCG@LSHTM) when we received the information that our proposal was awarded the PALI grants for 2023 aimed at improving awareness about non communicable respiratory disease (asthma and COPD) to promote lung health at the Serrekunda Black Market (SBM), Banjul, The Gambia. This event, the first of its kind in The Gambia, was held on the 25^th September 2023 as planned to celebrate the World Lung Day.

1. Pre-event activities/ highlights

• Planning meetings with the facilitators at MRCG@LSHTM
• Booking appointment and meeting with the Market stakeholders at the SBM to inform on the WLD upcoming event and the reason for selecting their subpopulation for the event. This was welcomed and connected our team with the market committee.
• Letters of invitation/ permission to:
  • the SBM committee members for planning and implementation purposes with selection of accessible venue to the market dwellers. At this meeting the Serrekunda Municipal Police station was suggested by the SBM committee as best place for the event. 
  • The Mayor of the Serrekunda Municipal
  • the media houses in The Gambia
  • the Police commissioner to use the premises to oust of event, which was approved by the commissioner and promised to support the event.
• Talk show at the Gambia Radio and Television station to sensitize the general public on the forthcoming World Lung Day at SBM
• Risk assessment and mitigation plans was set up for the event
• Creation/ designing/ printing of COPD awareness materials
• Assessment and set up of the venue for the event 
• Event pilot sessions 21-22September 2023

2. Event activities/ highlights

Preamble: We set out to welcome a total of 150 participants for the event. However, we had 253 participants in attendance registered with verbal consent to participate and written signed informed consent for pictures and videos recordings during the event. Only one participant objected to pictures and videos and his stand point was respected in the course of the event. Due to the circumstances of our participants as market dwellers busy with business activities we had to allow them come walk in groups as occasioned by their time availability. Our team were early at the market arena to give rounds of reminders for potential participants to attend the event. This strategy worked well for us and shown by the number of participants that attend the event.

The sessions covered during the event were as itemised below:

• Registration of participants with identification number and consent processes
• Checklists handed over to participants to enable them to participate in all the sessions
• Pre-event assessment questionnaire administered by our field staff on COPD awareness
• Risk factors assessment for COPD
• Anthropometry and vital signs measurements
• COPD talk sessions: meaning, causes, how COPD presents, diagnosed and managed, lung rehabilitation, prevention of COPD, and smoking cessation
• Lung Function assessments: Risk factor assessment question for COPD, Carbon monoxide analysis (Smokerlyzer), Peak flow meter, and Spirometry
• Post- event assessment questionnaire to evaluation level of awareness in participants after the event

3. Outcome of event: Our main goal was to screen and identified participants who will optimal benefit for spirometry using the composition of risk assessment for COPD questionnaire, Smokerlyzer, and peak flow meter.

• We did blew 59 of 248 (24%) participants who volunteered to participate at the spirometry station. 21 of 59 (35.6%) blows had impaired lung function from the spirometry results. They
• Seven media houses (4 Television stations and 3 print media houses) were present at the event and subsequently televised by the television stations in English and translated into the 3 major local languages during the News casting period on the same day of the event, 25 September 2023. This increased the spread of the COPD awareness and WLD program in The Gambia.
• The results of the pre-event questionnaire showed that 42% of participants indicated awareness of COPD, 9% knew causes of COPD, 2.4% diagnosed of COPD before and 1% indicated correctly the clinical presentation synonymous with COPD as their clinical presentation at the hospital. The post-event questionnaire showed all participants were know aware of the disease COPD and could mention at least 3 major causes (exposure to smoke [either through smoking or second hand passive smoking], Asthma, chest infections like TB) of COPD.
• Our WLD awareness event was successful in improving the level of awareness about COPD in our participants and The Gambia community at large.
• The participants with impaired lung function tests were referred to the General Hospital at Serrekunda for care with support from our chest clinic physician at the MRCG@LSHTM at Fajara, The Gambia.   
• 3-minutes video documentary for the event at the final stage of production shall be shared once finalized.

We thank our sponsor the PATS for giving us the opportunity to improve lung health in our locality.

Reported by Olumuyiwa Adesina Owolabi (2023