Abstract:

Each year, there is an estimated 220 million deaths caused by malaria leading to approximately one million deaths mostly among children under five years of age. There is a growing international agreement to use prevention and treatments methods that are available against malaria. The most effective method include; the use of mosquito bed nets treated with long lasting insecticide (LLINs) to avoid mosquito and to kill mosquito and spraying the inside wall of the houses with similar to kill malaria carrying mosquitoes. In 2013 an estimated 136million LLINs were delivered in endemic countries, a major increase over the 70million bed nets were funded for delivery in 2014 and suggesting an even stronger pipeline for 2015. Population access to LLINs remain below the target universal coverage and has not appreciably improved.

Malaria being a fatal disease is becoming difficult to prevent and control because of the habit of increasing resistance to the insecticides of the female anopheles mosquito.

In Cameroon, malaria remains a public health problem and responsible for 31% of consultations and 44% of hospitalization in health facilities. It is responsible for 18% of deaths occurring in Cameron .In children less than 5 years 31% of deaths are due to malaria.

The use of LLINs in Cameroon is still a problem, that is why in world malaria days from 2013-2015 the theme has been “invest in the future, defeat malaria to call attention to the effort to finish the job this 2015 calling for high level commitment to the vision of a world free of malaria”.

The general objective was to find out the factors affecting the acquisition and proper usage of LLINs as a primary preventive measure against malaria and to propose possible solutions to identified problems.

The specific objectives of the study were:

1.      To assess the community’s knowledge on malaria prevention.

2.      To assess their practical measures used in preventing malaria through the use of LLINs.

3.      To find out the proportion of the community with LLINs properly installed and utilized.

4.      To ascertain the constraints encountered by the community in its proper usage and propose possible solution to any identified problems.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was employed in which data was collected on the acquisition and proper use of LLINs in the Batibo health area.

The study population constituted of the inhabitants of Batibo health area community.

A sample of 100 respondents were randomly selected using the systematic random sampling method to represent the entire population of Batibo Health Area). Results show that on the distribution of respondents relative to whether they have LLINs; it was observed that out of the 100 respondents 62% had LLINs while 38% did not have, 12 (19.35%) of the respondents said they have never had LLINs , 28(45.26%) said LLINs are not enough while 22( 35.48%) said the one they had is bad. The reason why LLINs may not be enough maybe because of increase in household members as 46 % of the respondents have more than four members per household.

It was equally observed that out of the 38 respondents who had LLINs they were not properly used as only 10(26.5%) said they sleep under LLIN every night,8(21.0%) said when they feel cold and 20(52.6%)said they like.

Conversely, out of the 38 respondents who had LLINs 16(42.1%) said everybody in the household sleep under LLINs while 22(57.9%) said not everybody sleep under LLINs. It was observed that not everybody sleep under LLINs because 13(34.3%) of the respondents said they were old, 2(5.2%) said they do not know why and 2(5.2%) said it is because of negligence.

In conclusion, from the results obtained it was found out that; most people do not use nets because the nets are insufficient and may be because of increasing number of per household compared to the number of LLINs given per household. In the community the relationship between mosquito and malaria well known but many people are not aware of the night-biting female anopheles mosquito that transmit the malaria parasite may be contributing to the fact that many people still reluctant to use the net properly as a primary preventive measure against malaria.

The peripheral level has a great task in the implementation of the proper use of LLINs and to let the net users understand that heat production and not breathing well are minor effects to some people at the beginning of the use of LLIN but after sometime these effects will disappear.

Key words: Long lasting Insecticidal Bednets, Female anopheles mosquitoes, Malaria, Installation, Residual spraying, Prevention, Vulnerable, Under-fives

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