Assessment of malaria hazard, vulnerability, and risks in Dire Dawa City Administration of eastern Ethiopia using GIS and remote sensing

Abstract

Malaria is a serious vector-borne disease affecting a greater proportion of the world’s population. Sub-Saharan Africa carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. Ethiopia is generally considered a low-to-moderate malaria transmission intensity country. However, the health sector in Ethiopia is greatly affected by climate change, which has profound consequences on the transmission cycles of vector-borne infectious diseases like malaria. The main objective of the study was to assess the spatial distribution of malaria hazard, vulnerability, and risk areas in Dire Dawa City Administration. GIS and remote-sensing in general and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) in particular was used for assessing and mapping malaria hazard, risk, and vulnerable areas in Dire Dawa City Administration based on the data collected from various sources. The malaria hazard map of the study area labeled 0.6% of the region as low-hazard level, 79.7% moderate, 19.7% high, and 0.1% very low. Results of malaria vulnerability analysis reveal that about 23%, 73%, and 4% of the region was found to be vulnerable to malaria risk at very high, high, and low levels, respectively. The malaria risk map classifies 80% of the region as a moderate malaria-risk area and 20% as high malaria-risk area. This assessment advocates that the GIS and remote-sensing technology as tools can be used to provide timely information on malaria hazard, vulnerability, and risk areas for planning and taking measures at various levels ranging from early warning, monitoring, and control to prevention against malaria epidemics in a resource-efficient and cost-effective way.