The assessment of the situation of malaria disease in the study community and its
knowledge, attitude and practice is necessary in order to institute appropriate malaria
prevention and control activities.
The objective of the study is to determine the prevalence of malaria and knowledge,
attitude and practice towards malaria prevention and control.
A community based cross-sectional study of 163 systematically selected urban
households was carried out in three randomly selected malarious kebeles of Gondar town
in Northern Ethiopia.
Almost all respondents (99.4%) had ever heard of malaria. Most (94.3%) of the study
community related to mode of transmission to the bite of anopheles mosquitoes and
57.9% of them knew that malaria could be transmitted from person to person. The
knowledge of malaria transmissibility was significant to age 35 and above (Adjusted OR
= 2.925 95%CI=1.596, 5.361) and educated people were knowledgeable than Illiterate
(Adjusted OR =2.868, 95%CI =1.584, 5.195) after bivariate regression. Most
respondents (92.2%) recognized that mosquito breed in stagnant water and swampy
areas, mainly believed to bite human beings at night (12.3%) . Malaria was thought to be
preventable by 94.3% of the respondents. Among 734 examined blood films, 39 (5.3%)
of them were malaria positive of which 29(74.4%) were due to Plasmodium falciparum
and 10(25.6%) due to P.vivax. From three zones A,B and C ; zone A which was the
nearest to the potential breeding site was significantly affected than the rest two zones,
(X2
= 14.47, P<0.001). Most positive cases (74.4%) for malaria were living within the
distance of less than 400 meters from breeding sites,( OR = 2.43; 95%CI (1.167, 5.067).
A considerable gap was seen between knowledge of preventive measures and practice of
malaria prevention and control methods among respondents. Most people living closer to
breeding sites were affected. Therefore, health education should be kept on and more
attention and priority should be given to minimize the gap and to those living closer to
potential breeding sites to safe life and prevent the spread of malaria disease in the
community.