Knowledge, attitude and practice on dengue fever and its prevention and control measures in urban slums of South India

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONDengue virus was first isolated in India in 1945.1 Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection causing a severe flulike illness and, sometimes causing a potentially lethal complication called severe dengue. Dengue is an acute febrile illness caused by Flavi virus, which exist in four different serotypes, namely DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4. The incidence of dengue has increased 30-fold over the last 50 years. Up to 50-100 million infections are now estimated to occur annually in over 100 endemic countries, putting almost half of the world's population at risk.2 Around 2.5 to 3 billion people, living mainly in urban areas of tropical and subtropical regions are ABSTRACT Background: Dengue fever (DF) is a viral infection carried by Aedesaegypti. Dengue is one of the major public health concerns and an emergent disease and contributes annual outbreaks in India. The aims and objectives of the study were to know the levels of knowledge regarding causation and modes of transmission Dengue fever in urban slums of Chittoor and to know the levels of awareness and practices regarding the prevention and control measures against dengue fever. Methods: A community based cross sectional study was done in urban slums of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh. The data from the family members residing in 100 households of urban slums were randomly selected from the list and interviewed individually. Apart from education and occupation of the participants, information on knowledge about Dengue fever, preventive practices are taken. The results were shown in proportions, percentage and association of the knowledge attitude and practices with the different factors. Results: Over all 100 (males 57 and females 43) people were interviewed with the mean age of 34.5 years. Almost 68% of the individuals knew mosquito causes vector borne diseases irrespective of their educational status and majority of them were daily wagers. Amongst them more than 70% of them were using protective measures. Majority of them responded the probable breeding sites were plastic pots, muddy pots and vessels (38%). The most commonly using protective measures were mosquito repellants (33%) and coils (19%). More than 90% of the individual visit the hospital for health seeking. Conclusions: The awareness regarding dengue and mosquito control measures was satisfactory to an extent. Surveillance along with periodic health education to the community and proper training of health personnel is required.

Health hazard of using mosquito repellent in Khulna city, Bangladesh

“…In residential areas, despite awareness of health risk of mosquito repellents, people are still using it, whereas in slum areas, due to ignorance, very few people are aware of the health risk of using repellents. Moreover, though number of repellent users is high in residential areas, their use and brand choice are comparatively better than people in slum areas; they mostly use repellent at nighttime, and this result is consistent with the study (Nagoor et al, 2017). About 80% respondents in slum areas use repellent for 5-8 h per day, while in residential areas, about 56% respondents use repellent for <5 h per day.…”

Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practices regarding dengue among the general population of Goa

“…12 The respondents had the knowledge regarding the biting time was day (48.7%) which was higher when compared with the study done Andhra Pradesh (36%) but lower when compared with study done in Punjab (56.15). 13,14 Although our survey population was able to correctly identify all the major breeding sites for Aedes, water coolers which were seen to be prominent breeding sites were least mentioned. Air coolers and cisterns, mostly used by the upper-middle, middle and lower-middle income households; facilitate breeding of mosquitoes because water is stored in the open tanks of the coolers.…”

A Community-Level Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice about Dengue Fever and the Identification of Mosquito Breeding Containers in Dire Dawa City of Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Most of the respondents (58.0%) heard about dengue fever from their relatives, friends, and families as well as from health professionals (43.3%). A study conducted in an urban slum of south India showed that 47% of the respondents knew about dengue fever through television and radio and 35% of them were from newspapers and banners [30]. In a study conducted in Malaysia, television was used as the main source of information followed by printed media and radio to hear about DF [31].…”