Students’ awareness of malaria at the beginning of national malaria elimination programme in China

Abstract

BackgroundIn the battle against malaria in China, the rate of elementary and high school students’ awareness on malaria knowledge is an important index for malaria elimination, but only rare data is available. This study aimed to investigate the level of malaria awareness in students at elementary and high schools in malaria endemic areas of China, and to provide the baseline information for the malaria elimination.MethodsThis cross-sectional survey was conducted in 20 different malaria-endemic provinces in the first year of China’s National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP). A structured questionnaire was administrated to students at elementary and high schools enrolled. A total of 44,519 questionnaires were effective while 1,220 were excluded because of incomplete survey responses.ResultsMore than 60% of students were aware of malaria, but only 9,013 of them answered correctly to all five questions, and there were still 1,862 students unaware of malaria. There were significant differences of the awareness of malaria among different age groups, between male and female, between two different education levels.DiscussionThe study reveals that students at elementary and high school levels did not have adequate knowledge of malaria about biology, pathogenicity, transmitting vectors and preventive methods and so on at the beginning of NMEP in China. Further emphasis should be paid on health education campaigns in China to increase students’ public awareness of malaria about vector control, treatment, prevention.

Public awareness of malaria at the beginning of a national malaria elimination program in China

“…A lack of reasonable knowledge of infectious diseases contributes to low detection rates, interruption of treatment, and discrimination [4,8]. The improvement of public perception about malaria could not only help the general population protect themselves, but could also promote those individuals suspected of being infected to seek medical help early and be treated more completely [8][9][10][11].…”

“…Five malaria knowledge choice questions, data collection training and implementation, and quality control were performed as described previously, and each question was awarded one mark for a correct answer, while each incorrect answer was given a mark of zero [4]. The total marks for the five questions were evaluated as follows: scores of five were considered excellent, while scores of three to four, one to two, and zero were considered good, poor, and very poor, respectively.…”

“…The total marks for the five questions were evaluated as follows: scores of five were considered excellent, while scores of three to four, one to two, and zero were considered good, poor, and very poor, respectively. The categories of excellent and good were considered as aware, while the others were considered as not aware [4]. The questionnaire was administrated to every resident who had provided verbal informed consent before admission into the study.…”

“…This cross-sectional study was carried out in rural areas from 20 Chinese provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions of Liaoning, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Shaanxi, and Gansu, using multistage cluster sampling in the same period (October 2010 to January 2011) of the investigation of students' awareness about malaria [4]. A total of 153 administrative villages from 54 towns in 19 Type I malaria-endemic counties (local infections detected in three consecutive years of 2006-2008 and the annual incidences ≥ 1/10,000) and 862 administrative villages from 164 towns in 83 Type II counties (local infections detected in the three years and at least in one year the annual incidence < 1/10,000 and > 0) were randomly selected, and residents no younger than 15 years of age were surveyed.…”

“…In order to understand the national baseline level of malaria awareness in China, essential reference data for effect evaluation when malaria elimination is achieved, a large-scale investigation of malaria awareness related to vectors, symptoms, pathogenicity, treatment, and preventive methods was implemented at the beginning of the China NMEP, and the information about students' awareness of malaria was published [4]. However, only some sporadic data about public awareness of malaria was available [5][6][7].…”