[Neuroepidemiology of epilepsy in Senegalese school milieu]

The authors proceeded to a 7 month long prevalence survey on epilepsy in the schools of the regions of Dakar and Thies in Senegal, West africa. It consisted to a cross sectional descriptive study targeting the children between 3 and 10 years old. The W.H.O. questionnaire on epilepsy was used for data collection. Among the 2803 children of the population study, 58 were detected suffering from epilepsy, realizing a prevalence rate of 21%. The males were more represented (62% of the epilepsies). All the epileptic children presented generalized seizures represented either by "Grand Mal" generalized tonic-clonic form (84.4% of the epilepsies), or by "Petit Mal" absences (15.6% of the epilepsies). The etiological forms were dominated by idiopathic epilepsies. Secondary generalized cases represented 31% of the epilepsy and were essentially detected in rural areas. They were usually related to obstetrical traumas (61.1% of the secondary generalized epilepsies) or to child encephalopathy with seizure attacks (38.9% of the secondary generalized epilepsies). It appears also from this study that epilepsy remains a dramatic public health reality and is more frequent among low economy income people who have less access to the health care system.