DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2015.1282
title: Innovatively exploring the constraints and challenges faced by malaria patients in the prevention and control of malaria - nkhata bay malawi

description: Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites called plasmodium which are transmitted from an infected person to another through the bites of infected female anopheles mosquitoes. The word malaria comes from the 18th Century Italian mala meaning ‘bad’ and aria meaning ‘air’ and might have been  first used by Dr. Francisco Torti when the people thought the disease was caused by foul air in the marshy areas.Although it is now over a century since scientists discovered that malaria is a parasitic disease caused by plasmodium and transmitted by female anopheles mosquitoes meaning that by being a parasitic disease is itself both preventable and curable. Some parts of the world have managed to eradicate malaria whilst others controlled it to a level of no public significance, however when the same interventions that have proved to be successful in those parts of the world are applied to other parts, instead of having an inverse relationship between the volume of interventions and the incidence rate of malaria, there appear to be a direct relationship between the amount of interventions and the rate of incidence of malaria. Should we be made to believe that the interventions that were effective in those other parts of the world have become obsolete or malaria parasites have become more dynamic? These are some of the questions that one poses.In essence after having noted that despite several interventions had been rolled out both preventive and curative, the incidence of malaria kept on being on the increase, so a study was carried out to explore the constraints and challenges faced by the confirmed malaria patients in the prevention and control of malaria. Basically it was to learn from the patients themselves as to what were their constraints and challenges and based on the results suggest corrective ways.A qualitative research was conducted which primarily was to probe into the constraints and challenges and the confirmed malaria positive patients were put into four categories namely pregnant women, children below 5 years, females and males and in each category participants were identified through sequential sampling without replacement from the population of interest.Despite the patients knowing how it was transmitted from one infected person to another and the interventions still being valid and rolled out to them, malaria patients experienced enormous constraints and challenges both in prevention and curative largely because of unscientifically proven beliefs amongst the patients. These unproven beliefs were acting as anchors pulling down the efforts of trying to prevent and control malaria amongst the malaria patients themselves. These unscientifically proven beliefs were contributing to the spread of malaria together with a trade in of an intervention for either money or sustaining mutual love among friends and family members hence contributing into the parasites that cause malaria to be resistant to most antimalarial drugs. Frequent stock outs of drugs and other pharmaceutical products at the hospital coupled with long distances for patients to cover to health facilities result into the patients not complying with the prescribed doses opting to share with friends and keeping for future use anticipating similar sickness will be experienced. Worse still, taking long before seeking medical help once the signs and symptoms of malaria or any disease were noted and opting to buy drugs from local shops (self-prescribing) which was a major breeding ground for counterfeit drugs to be sold.The fact that the health services were fully subsidized coupled with no proper monitoring mechanism in place to trace how the given resources were being used was misunderstood by some as a license to abuse the intervention products on the pretext that if they fall sick they would still access treatment because it was for free and that it was government’s responsibility to provide the health services so there was no need to worry about how the various resources were being used.In view of these results and if progress was to be made, then stamping out the unscientifically proven beliefs should be given a priority besides developing a reliable healthcare system that  people at large would have trust in it as well as  working tirelessly towards reducing the distances covered by patients when trying to access medical help. Authorities and community members should work together to identify both short and long term solutions that will instill ownership of the health services amongst the people who benefit from those services.