Malaria prevention in the Buea health district in Cameroon: factors influencing Mosquito bed net use in households

Background: Insecticide treated bed nets (ITNs), though proven to be effective in preventing malaria will have little impact unless people sleep under them. Several studies have shown that owned ITNs are usually not used and that ITN use is influenced by several factors that vary between communities.Objective: To investigate the factors influencing the use of mosquito bed nets in households in the Buea Health District (BHD) in Cameroon.Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study with two-stage cluster sampling included 420 households from 35 sites. Questionnaires adapted from the Malaria Indicator Survey were used. CSPro 4.1 and Epi info 3.5.3 were used to create database and analyze respectively.Results: ITN ownership in the BHD was high (92.6%; 95% CI: 89.6%-94.9%) but ITN use was less than average (41.2%; 95% CI: 39.2%-43.3%). ITN use was least likely in the age group 5-15 years (P<0.01), in educated individuals (P<0.01) and in households with less than one ITN for two persons (P<0.01). White ITNs were less likely to be used (P<0.01). Conclusion: There is a gap between ITN ownership and use in the malaria holoendemic BHD and ITN use is associated with age of individual, level of education, colour of ITNs and household net density. Use of the highly owned ITNs could be increased by targeting the least protected 5-15 years age group and schooling individuals; by promoting school-based education on ITN use.Keywords: Insecticide-treated nets, malaria, Buea Health Distric

The human health chapter of climate change and ozone depletion

Climate change is one of the greatest emerging threats of the 21st century. There is much scientific evidence that climate change is giving birth to direct health events including more frequent weather extremes, increase in epidemics, food and water scarcity. Indirect risks to health are related to changes in temperature and precipitation, leading to droughts and floods, which affect agricultural yields and production. In some regions of the world, these impacts compromise food security and threaten human health through the spread of infectious diseases, malnutrition, and food contamination. The health impacts of climate change constitute a major task for public health planners and policymakers because they require new techniques and approaches to deal with the complexities and uncertainties that are bound with it. The complexities related to the problem are far beyond simple epidemiologic analysis and interpretations of disease causation. There is need to strengthen existing health systems with the ability to assess health vulnerabilities and build capacity to fight health risks due to climate change. This paper explores the health impacts of climate change in humans in general, while emphasizing on the role of local government and policy makers in the control of health related hazards to climateKeywords: climate change, health impacts, policy maker