Perception of Malaria Risk in Zanzibar: A Qualitative Study

Running head: HEALTHCARE
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Bauch, J. A., Gu, J. J., Msellem, M., Mårtensson, A., Ali, A. S., Gosling, R., & Baltzell,
K. A. (2013). Perception of malaria risk in a setting of reduced malaria transmission: a
qualitative study in Zanzibar. Malaria journal, 12(1), 75.
Introduction- The most common zoonotic and vector borne disease is malaria. The
above research article mainly focusses on the declination of malaria transmission in Zanzibar
area. According to the author, the insecticidal-treated nets and diagnostic tests of malaria help
in the prevention of malaria rejuvenation. They performed numerous quantitative studies in
order to explore community perceptions of malaria risk and thus use the preventive measures
in Zanzibar.
Discussion- The authors found that malaria transmission has decreased from 35-40%
in 1995 to less than 2% in 2010. The authors mainly use population and site studies. The
studies were conducted in two districts in Zanzibar. The data collections were done with help
of interviews and focus group discussions. Thus data are only collected from primary
sources. This is because primary sources data are collected from surveys and interviews
(Smith 2015). These focus group discussions helped in exploring the perceptions of citizens
regarding risk of malaria and the preventive measure they take in order to protect themselves
from this disease. All this studies were done after approval from the Zanzibar Medical
Research and Ethics Committee. According to the authors, they did not pay the participants
for the study. For all the data collection, strict ethical guidelines should be followed. No
participants should be forced and consent form should be filled by all them prior starting the

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survey procedure (Panneerselvam 2014). The results of this study detailed that the citizens
are at risk for malaria but they themselves take various measures to protect them, that is, they
are cautious. According to the authors, numerous measures were implemented in order to
save the citizens from such zoonotic and vector- borne diseases. One such implementation
includes development of village health committees. These health committees will mainly
constitute of village members and local health care providers. Another implementation that is
made according to the author is educating the children about malaria and other vector-borne
diseases. All schools in Zanzibar are requested to start school based health education. The
research work was done in an accurate and organized manner. However, the authors did not
provide relevant references which became the only drawback.
The disease that is portrayed in the above article is the most common vector-borne
illness malaria. Malaria is a disease that is caused by biting of the female Anopheles
mosquito. In Zanzibar, according to the article, citizens are at risk of malaria. However, over
the years, the risk decreased as the citizens became more cautious about the disease and
hence took measures beforehand. Such measures include stoppage of storing water in houses
as this leads to the development of mosquitoes, introducing mosquito nets and using
numerous mosquito repellant (Gryseels et al., 2015).
The authors in their research implemented many new practices in the health care
system in order to prevent the risk of malaria in that area. They implemented the development
of health care committees in the villages of Zanzibar. Such committees contain some local