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Malaria
Published in Roger Cooter, John Pickstone, Medicine in the Twentieth Century, 2020
Part of the cultural side of the human experience of malaria has been explored in histories of tropical hygiene. Tropical hygiene focused its defenses on small European populations in the colonies and on imperial armies that often suffered greater casualties from disease than from warfare. Hygiene touched every aspect of colonial Europeans’ lives, from the clothes they wore to the organization of the cities they lived in or their choice of camping sites when on safari. Gin helped the ‘bwanas’ or ‘sahibs’ and ‘memsahibs’ to get down their quinine-dosed tonic water each day and led to the tradition of ‘sundowners,’ drinking sessions at dusk which, ironically, may have caused colonial gentlemen to linger on the veranda during the prime anopheline biting times. Never mind — hygiene also recommended donning long-sleeved shirts and high-topped mosquito boots to protect vulnerable parts. Repellents of various kinds could take care of any remaining exposed skin. If one stayed outdoors to sleep, mosquito nets could be draped over a camp bed in a big cottage tent. However, the experienced colonial administrator on tour amongst his subjects preferred sleeping in the open, depending on light breezes to drive away mosquitoes that might otherwise shelter in the corners of a tent waiting to bite. Ceiling fans performed a similar function in houses, not merely driving away heat but also mosquitoes.
Communicable diseases
Published in Jan de Boer, Marcel Dubouloz, Handbook of Disaster Medicine, 2020
Infectious agents can rarely be attacked directly in the environment; usually, intervention must take the form of controlling transmission and this may be: – physical, e.g. mosquito nets to prevent contact between mosquitoes and humans.– hygienic e.g. personal hygiene to reduce contact between faecal matter and humans.– chemical, e.g. water chlorination, insecticides.
Alternative Methods of Vector Control
Published in Jacques Derek Charlwood, The Ecology of Malaria Vectors, 2019
It is likely that the most suitable method of reducing man-vector contact is to improve houses to make them less accessible to the mosquito. Some of these improvements are relatively simple such as closing the gap between the eaves and the roofs of houses, which has been shown to reduce entry rates by approximately 43% (Figure 9.3). Indeed, using old mosquito nets for this purpose both avoids environmental contamination with their disposal and provides a significant level of added protection to the householders. Such measures have the advantage that once in place further compliance by the householder is not required. They do not depend on an insecticide and can be done on a do-it-yourself (DIY) basis.
Fifty years after the eradication of Malaria in Italy. The long pathway toward this great goal and the current health risks of imported malaria
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2021
Mariano Martini, Andrea Angheben, Niccolò Riccardi, Davide Orsini
Initially, the former approach prevailed, given the firm conviction that the first step in the struggle against malaria should be to treat the sick. Very soon, however, owing to the various difficulties encountered in administering the drug, it was realized that quinine treatment would have to be supported by ‘mechanical prophylaxis’, as proposed by Giovanni Battista Grassi and Angelo Celli. The indications of these two scientists brought the question of mechanical barriers (mosquito nets) into legislation on malaria prevention. In the early decades of the 20th century, governments of various political colors returned to the issue several times, beginning with Law 460 of 2 November 1901, which provided financial incentives up to 1000 lire for those who installed mechanical barriers against mosquitoes in their homes. Unfortunately, however, as the implementation of such prophylaxis was mainly delegated to landowners, it was frequently disregarded.
Sleeping space matters: LLINs usage in Ghana
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2020
Richard Bannor, Anthony Kwame Asare, Samuel Oko Sackey, Richard Osei-Yeboah, Priscillia Awo Nortey, Justice Nyigmah Bawole, Victoria Ansah
LLINs are mosquito nets embedded with insecticide. They serve as very effective means for preventing malaria infection and reducing associated morbidity and mortality [6,8]. The adoption of LLINs has played an important role in reducing the malaria burden in Africa to an extent [9]. However, this has not significantly reduced the number of malaria cases in Ghana as expected [10]. Non-usage of LLINs by households who have received LLINs at no financial cost to them during malaria campaigns is one of the reasons that accounts for a lot of malaria cases in Africa [11]. Several studies have identified that the availability of LLINs in households does not guarantee its use [11–13]. A study conducted among pregnant women in suburban coastal Ghana found that LLINs possession was 31.6% with 5.4% utilization [14]. This situation is similar in other malaria-endemic areas in Africa [15,16]. The expected behavior is that once people own LLINs, they should use them [17]. However, that is not the case in a lot of households [18]. This undermines efforts made by governments, local and international bodies to control malaria through LLINs distribution.
Malaria preventive behaviors among housewives in suburbs of Bandar-Abbas City, south of Iran: interventional design based on PRECEDE model
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2019
Leila Ghahremani, Mojdeh Azizi, Mohammad Djaefar Moemenbellah-Fard, Haleh Ghaem
There was no significant difference in only one of the items (roofed abandoned places) in the checklist of malaria preventive behaviors between the intervention and control groups after the health education. This lack of change in the intervention group may be due to poverty or excessive financial resources required to demolish abandoned roofed places and the eroded foundation of suburban areas. These results were also in line with those in Kerman, Iran [23] and Chiang Mai Province, Thailand [38]. In other items, there were significant differences between the intervention and control groups after the health education. The rate of mosquito net use before the intervention was lower than 80%. The reason for this low rate is probably scant awareness of the disease and negative attitudes towards mosquito nets. This rate of mosquito net use was less than that in other malaria-endemic countries like Sierra Leone (67.2%), India (79.2%), and Sri Lanka (90%) [39–41]. The reason for the effectiveness of using mosquito net was probably creating a positive attitude towards the use of preventive devices, especially mosquito nets.