Abstract
BackgroundInterventions to raise community awareness about malaria prevention and treatment have used various approaches with little evidence on their efficacy. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of loudspeaker announcements regarding malaria care and prevention practices among people living in the malaria endemic villages of Banmauk Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar.MethodsFour villages among the most malaria-burdened areas were randomly selected: two villages were assigned as the intervention group, and two as the control. Prior to the peak transmission season of malaria in June 2018, a baseline questionnaire was administered to 270 participants from randomly selected households in the control and intervention villages. The loudspeaker announcements broadcasted health messages on malaria care and prevention practices regularly at 7:00 pm every other day. The same questionnaire was administered at 6-month post intervention to both groups. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and the t-test were utilized to assess differences between and within groups.ResultsParticipants across the control and intervention groups showed similar socio-economic characteristics; the baseline knowledge, attitude and practice mean scores were not significantly different between the groups. Six months after the intervention, improvements in scores were observed at p-value < 0.001 in both groups, however; the increase was greater among the intervention group. The declining trend of malaria was also noticed during the study period. In addition, more than 75% of people expressed positive opinions of the intervention.ConclusionsThe loudspeaker intervention was found to be feasible and effective, as shown by the significant improvement in scores related to prevention and care-seeking practices for malaria as well as reduced malaria morbidity. Expanding the intervention to a larger population in this endemic region and evaluating its long-term effectiveness are essential in addition to replicating this in other low-resource malaria endemic regions.
Highlights
Interventions to raise community awareness about malaria prevention and treatment have used various approaches with little evidence on their efficacy
A trained village malaria worker (VMW) supported by the township vector-borne disease control (VBDC) team was assigned to each village
The results revealed no significant difference among the groups prior to the intervention, but a statistically significant difference between the groups post-intervention in knowledge for signs and symptoms of malaria, and for the section on diagnosis and treatment of malaria
Summary
Interventions to raise community awareness about malaria prevention and treatment have used various approaches with little evidence on their efficacy. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of loudspeaker announcements regarding malaria care and prevention practices among people living in the malaria endemic villages of Banmauk Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar. 219 million people contracted malaria in 2017, with an estimated 435,000 deaths [1]. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the strategy to eliminate malaria in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) by 2030 [2]. By 2016, Myanmar had the highest annual parasite incidence rate among the GMS countries [1]; 291 out of 330 townships in Myanmar were endemic with more than 40 million people at risk for malaria. The number of deaths and cases of malaria in Myanmar had dropped significantly from 1707 and 516,041 in 2010 to 21 and 105,178 in 2016, respectively [3]. With strong government commitment and under the leadership of the national malaria control programme, a roadmap to eliminate malaria by 2030 was announced in Myanmar [3, 4]
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