Assessing the knowledge and health seeking behaviours among people towards Malaria in children under five and pregnant women; a case study of Uganda

Abstract

According to the world health organization (WHO), there is an estimation of 229 million malaria cases and 409,000 deaths in 87 malaria endemic countries globally (WHO, 2020). In addition to that, WHO goes on to point it out that 95% of all malaria cases worldwide were from 29 countries out of the 8 that were malaria endemic. In African region malaria accounts for approximately 94% of cases and deaths, that is an estimate of 215 million cases from which 384,000 were resultant deaths. In Africa, among the pregnant women, there was 11.6 million (35%) out of the 33.2 million pregnancies that was exposed. With the highest prevalence being in central Africa at 40% followed by west Africa at 39% and 24% in east and south Africa respectively.(Malaria indicator survey, 2020). Although malaria cases have reduced in some countries for example India by 1.2 million and Mali by 0.8 million, there was increments in others for example Nigeria by 2.4 million and the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 1.2 million hence slight increase from 155 million to 156 million between the two years that is 2018-2019. Overall, there has been almost non-significant deviations in malaria since the past years till current.