Free distribution of insecticidal bed nets improves possession and preferential use by households and is equitable: findings from two cross-sectional surveys in thirteen malaria endemic districts of Bangladesh

Malaria Journal

Research

Mohammad M Kabir¹  Syed M Ahmed²  Sanjit Roy²  Shamim Hossain² 

[1] BRAC Health Programme, BRAC Centre, 75 Mohakhali, Dhaka-1212, Dhaka, Bangladesh;Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC Centre, 75 Mohakhali, Dhaka-1212, Dhaka, Bangladesh;

关键词: Malaria;    LLINs;    ITNs;    BRAC;    Bangladesh;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-10-357

 received in 2011-09-07, accepted in 2011-12-13,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBRAC, an indigenous non-governmental development organization (NGO), has been implementing a programme to prevent and control malaria in the 13 malaria-endemic districts of Bangladesh since 2007. One of the critical preventive interventions is the distribution of insecticidal bed nets (long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, LLINs and insecticide-treated ordinary nets, ITNs) to the community free of cost. This study aimed to assess progress in the possession, preferential use, and knowledge on use of the LLIN/ITNs including the programme's avowed pro-poor inclination one and three and half years after intervention began.MethodsA convenient sampling strategy based on malaria endemicity in the districts was adopted. First, thirty upazila (sub-district, with a population around 250,000)s were selected at random, with high prevalent districts contributing more upazilas; second, from each upazila, one (2008) to two (2011) villages (covered by insecticidal bed net distribution programme) were selected. From each village, households that had either one under-five child and/or a pregnant woman were included in the survey, one household being included only once. Data were collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire.ResultsIn all, 3,760 households in 2008 and 7,895 households in 2011 were surveyed for collecting relevant information. Proportion of households with at least one LLIN, and at least one LLIN/ITN increased (22-59 to 62-67% and 22-64% to 74-76% respectively) over time, including increase in the mean number of LLIN/ITNs per household (≤ 1 to 1 +). The programme achieved > 80% coverage in sleeping under an LLIN/ITN in the case of under-five children and pregnant women, especially in the high-endemic districts. Knowledge regarding critical time of hanging the net also increased over time (7-22 to 44-54%), but remained low. The pro-poor inclination of the programme is reflected in the status of relevant indicators according to self-rated poverty status of the households.ConclusionsThere has been a substantial improvement in possession and usage of insecticidal bed nets especially for the two most vulnerable groups (under-five children and pregnant women), including a reduction of gaps between the high and low endemic districts, and the deficit and non-deficit households during the study period.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Ahmed et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricteduse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.