Al Neelain Medical Journal - VOL - 04

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    Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice about Sandfly and Visceral Leishmaniasis Control Activities in Rural Area of Gedarif State, Sudan in May 2008
    (جامعة النيلين, 2012) Moawia M. Hassan; Anwr O. Banaga; Ehab AM. Frah; Bakri Y. M. Nour
    Control of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Sudan remains a subject of interest because the disease threats lives of many populations in endemic areas. Success of the disease control programme depends on improving of knowledge attitude and practice (KAP) of the community towards kala-azar in the endemic areas. No data have previously been published on the KAP of the community towards kala-azar in Sudan. A cross-sectional study was carried out in Tabarakallah and Barbar elfugara villages (Gedarif State; eastern Sudan) during May 2008 to assess the KAP towards sand fly and leishmaniasis control activities by households. Heads of 388 of households from the two villages were interviewed using a well designed socio-economic questionnaire. Most of the respondents in the area (95.6%) were aware of Kala-azar. However, fever, weight loss (28.1%) and hepato-splenomegaly (31.4%) were the most commonly known symptoms. The infectious NMJ March مجلة النيلين الطبية-العدد الرابع 2012  2012 Al Neelain Medical Journal vol.2 No.4 ISSN 1858-6279 nature of the disease was only known to 19.6% whereas 51% of the respondents believed that transmission is by other insects (e.g. mosquitoes) rather than sand flies. Most of the respondents (76.8%) preferred specialize VL treatment centres than health centres (19.1%) or public health sectors (0.5%) for treatment. Approximately, 33.2% of the respondents thought that sand flies breed in hospitals and only 17.7% knew that sand flies biting occur during night. The majority of the respondents (85.5%) believed that ITNs can be a good choice for control of VL rather than insecticide spraying (5.7%) or applying of mosquito repellents (2.7%). Poor knowledge of the respondents in the study area about symptoms of KA, nature of the disease transmission, breeding sites of the vector and control measures underline the urgent need of intensive health educational campaigns in the area to help future plan to control the disease.