MALARIA REMAINS A LEADING CAUSE OF DEATHS IN TANZANIA

By Elias Mhegera

IT has been revealed that Malaria remains the leading cause of both morbidity and mortality in Tanzania, especially among young children.

And this is happening despite a 50-percent reduction in infection rates over the past decade. According to a research that was conducted by David Montez a research analyst recently, it is clear that there is an ongoing need to educate the public about malaria's causes and methods of preventing infection.

In the report conducted under the tile Health Education Needs in Tanzania, the Audience Scopes survey included a module to measure people's access to information in general, and access to health information in particular, as well as access to health services. The data yielded some guidelines for public health professionals seeking to educate the public about malaria.

The survey indicated that the national and local radio continues to play a significant role in delivering malaria information to at-risk populations. However, word-of-mouth networks also require attention from public health workers, particularly among socioeconomically constrained populations with low levels of access to media outlets. 

The survey also revealed that a large proportion of Tanzanians across the country said that they have access to clinics and medical doctors. However, there is great variability among respondents from different regions regarding the usefulness of medical doctors as a source of information about malaria.

Consequently, it was revealed that there is a need for increased outreach to clinics and hospitals in high-risk provinces of the country like Kagera, Mwanza and Mtwara, where infection rates are twice the national average.

A majority of survey respondents said that they receive enough information about malaria prevention. However, malaria also is one of the health issues that many Tanzanians say they want more information about.

This suggests a case of improper messaging, whether it is ineffective framing of the issue or the use of inappropriate communication mediums, and the need for improved message testing. 

The survey learnt that international development NGOs, in cooperation with the Tanzanian government, have been highly active in this East African country over the past decade, distributing more than 8 million insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to vulnerable populations.

These actions, coupled with a national malaria behavior-change communications campaign in late 2007, helped to cut in half the disease’s national infection rate, however, many areas still have high rates of infection, notably the provinces of Kagera, Mara and Mwanza, which border Lake Victoria, and Lindi and Mtwara on the south-eastern coast, according to a 2007/2008 Tanzania HIV and Malaria Indicator Survey.

This survey also had wanted to know how public health officials best can reach Tanzanians in need of information about malaria and as a result the survey data came up with some clues. 

It discovered that the radio continues to be the main go-to source for news and entertainment for most of the population, with television remaining a luxury for those outside major urban centers. The large majority of TV viewers residing outside of Dar es Salaam tend to watch TV outside the home.

In most provinces, less than half of TV viewers said they watch at home. Overall, the importance of television as a source for either news or health communication increases in areas like the capital where weekly TV viewership is twice the national average.

While this survey is only a snapshot in time, on the surface it seems that information campaigns looking to expose Tanzanians to information about malaria have been successful.

Nationally and in each province, about three quarters of all respondents said they had received malaria information in at least the past week. Even among women of birthing age, a key target group for malaria prevention, more than 80 percent said they had received information in the past week, regardless of whether they lived in an urban or rural area.

Despite this availability of information, malaria also emerged as a leading health topic that respondents want more information about. This suggests a strategic problem with malaria messaging, perhaps ineffective framing of the issue or the use of inappropriate communication mediums. 

It was revealed that the level of an individual's consumption of news media appears to influence their level of exposure to information about malaria. Indeed, the 17 percent of our sample who had not received malaria information during the past month or longer (low access), were also significantly less likely to be daily or weekly consumers of news media (radio or television).

Note that about 64 percent of the low-access group resides in households earning $2 a day or less. In addition, 76 percent of the people in this group have only a primary education or less.

Interestingly, this low-access group has similar levels of access to health clinics and medical doctors as do those with high access to malaria information. This seems to have resulted in an equal use of medical doctors as a source for information on malaria.

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