Malaria Control Using Irs
Chapter one
1. Introduction
Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. It is endemic throughout the country with more than 90% of the total population at risk of stable endemic malaria. At least 50% of the population suffers from at least one episode of malaria each year. However children aged less than 5 years and pregnant women are among the highest at risk of infection it has been documented that malaria, a parasitic disease which is easily preventable, treatable and curable remained one of the major public health problems in Nigeria. The obstacle to the success of malaria control and prevention interventions are both behavioral and non behavioral. The behavioral factors relate to cultural practices which promote mosquito breeding and mosquito access to people as well failure of the risk population to use technologies proven to be effective for the treatment, control and prevention of malaria promptly and appropriately. The main non-behavioral factors include geographical or ecological peculiarities, the availability of mosquitoes and the presence of plasmodia.
The world health organization’s (WHO) Global Malaria Program recommends the following three primary interventions that must be scaled up in countries to effectively respond to malaria, towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals for malaria by 2015 and other health targets:
• Diagnosis of malaria cases and treatment with effective medicines;
• Distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to achieve full coverage of populations at risk of malaria; and
• Indoor residual spraying (IRS) as a major means of malaria vector control to reduce and eliminate malaria transmission.
Scaling up access and achieving high coverage of these effective interven¬tions, particularly to populations who are at the highest risk of malaria, and sustaining their implementation, remain major challenges for achieving cur¬rent global malaria control goals.
1. Introduction
Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. It is endemic throughout the country with more than 90% of the total population at risk of stable endemic malaria. At least 50% of the population suffers from at least one episode of malaria each year. However children aged less than 5 years and pregnant women are among the highest at risk of infection it has been documented that malaria, a parasitic disease which is easily preventable, treatable and curable remained one of the major public health problems in Nigeria. The obstacle to the success of malaria control and prevention interventions are both behavioral and non behavioral. The behavioral factors relate to cultural practices which promote mosquito breeding and mosquito access to people as well failure of the risk population to use technologies proven to be effective for the treatment, control and prevention of malaria promptly and appropriately. The main non-behavioral factors include geographical or ecological peculiarities, the availability of mosquitoes and the presence of plasmodia.
The world health organization’s (WHO) Global Malaria Program recommends the following three primary interventions that must be scaled up in countries to effectively respond to malaria, towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals for malaria by 2015 and other health targets:
• Diagnosis of malaria cases and treatment with effective medicines;
• Distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to achieve full coverage of populations at risk of malaria; and
• Indoor residual spraying (IRS) as a major means of malaria vector control to reduce and eliminate malaria transmission.
Scaling up access and achieving high coverage of these effective interven¬tions, particularly to populations who are at the highest risk of malaria, and sustaining their implementation, remain major challenges for achieving cur¬rent global malaria control goals.