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A cross sectional study to assess perception regarding mosquito borne diseases in urban areas of Belagavi city

Malaria is one of the major public health problems of the country. It is a protozoa disease infection with parasites of the genus plasmodium and transmitted to man by certain species of infected female anopheline mosquito. There were about 198 million cases of malaria in year 2013 and an estimated 584000 deaths. 1 According to official data of NVBDCP, about 95% population in the country resides in malaria endemic areas and 80% of malaria reported in the country is confined to areas consisting 20% of population residing in tribal, hilly, difficult and inaccessible areas. 2 For the control of mosquito transmitted diseases, Government of India started the national malaria control programme in 1952 and it has been renamed as national vector borne disease control programme in 2003. Studies conducted in tropical countries had found that human knowledge, attitude and practice of various methods of personal and household protection against mosquito bites vary in different communities. 3


INTRODUCTION
Malaria is one of the major public health problems of the country. It is a protozoa disease infection with parasites of the genus plasmodium and transmitted to man by certain species of infected female anopheline mosquito. There were about 198 million cases of malaria in year 2013 and an estimated 584000 deaths. 1 According to official data of NVBDCP, about 95% population in the country resides in malaria endemic areas and 80% of malaria reported in the country is confined to areas consisting 20% of population residing in tribal, hilly, difficult and inaccessible areas. 2 For the control of mosquito transmitted diseases, Government of India started the national malaria control programme in 1952 and it has been renamed as national vector borne disease control programme in 2003. Studies conducted in tropical countries had found that human knowledge, attitude and practice of various methods of personal and household protection against mosquito bites vary in different communities. 3 Many studies have conducted in several endemic areas, which revealed that methods of personal and household protection against mosquito bite varied in different areas. Awareness about the mosquito borne diseases and knowledge about prevention and self-protection against mosquito bite is one of important fundamental component in vector borne disease control programme.
The following a community based cross section study was conducted to assess the knowledge, awareness and practices to prevent mosquito borne diseases in urban areas of Belagavi city.

METHODS
The present questionnaire based cross sectional study was carried out in urban Health Centeres, Ramnagar, Ashok Nagar And Rukmini Nagar of Belagavi City, which comes under urban field practice area of department of community medicine, Jawaharalal Nehru medical college, Belagavi from June 2016 to July 2016 for a period of 2 months. Data was collected by total 360 people on outpatient department on the basis of systemic random sampling. The information gathered using semi structured questionnaire, which included questions related to knowledge about mosquito borne diseases, symptoms, sources of breeding, disposal of wastes, personal protection used, and about government plans. Permission from institution ethics committee and the informed consent was taken from the study subjects. Data was compiled, tabulated and analyzed using proportions.

RESULTS
Our study subjects constituted about 360, 45.8 % were in the age group of 20-29, and 11.2% were 60 and above age. Male participants constituted about 56.3% and 43.7% were female. 4.4 % people belong to class I and 41.4 % belongs to class IV socio-economic status. 19.3 % were illiterates and Graduates and Post Graduates constituted about 20.1% (Table 1).
28.6% lived in Kachha and 71.4% in Pakka house ( Table  2). 78.33% study subjects knew about mosquitoes borne diseases (Table 3). 31.3 % people had the knowledge that mosquitoes can cause malaria, dengue and chikungunya, 15.8% had the knowledge that mosquito can cause malaria and dengue, where as 26.8% did not have any knowledge that mosquito can cause diseases (Graph 1). 48.4 % people answered headache, body ache, and fever as symptoms of mosquito borne disease, 18.4% nausea and vomiting, 13.8% fever, where as 19.4 % people were not aware of the symptoms (Table 4).
36.6% consider drainage and garbage as common breeding place, 22.5% garbage and stagnant water, and 0.83% people consider stagnant water only as breeding place of mosquitoes (Table 5).
57.8% people use mosquito coils, 20.3% mosquito nets and 8.61% people repellants to prevent mosquito bite (Table 6). 61.4% study subjects had knowledge about disease through TV and newspapers 11.3%, people from health personnel and 1.6% from relatives (Table 7).

CONCLUSION
The study revealed that there is lack of awareness and knowledge about mosquito borne disease in low socio economic status and also among illiterates. Though majority of the people know that mosquito spread diseases like dengue, malaria and chikungunya, but there was lack of knowledge regarding other lethal diseases like Japanese encephalitis and kala azar. There was lack in adequate knowledge about prevention of breeding of mosquitoes in and around the house. It was also seen that there was lack of awareness regarding government measures regarding mosquito born diseases. There is a dire need to expand the focus of knowledge to other mosquito borne diseases also.