Background:
Malaria causes about 300 to 500 million episodes of acute illness and 1.2 million deaths per year globally. In Ethiopia, malaria is highly seasonal in many communities and is unstable in other areas with epidemic-prone transmission pattern. Unusual increment of malaria case was reported from Dilla Town surveillance officer on March 7, 2017. We investigated to describe the epidemiology, identify risk factors, and recommend preventive measures.
Methods:
We defined suspected malaria patient with fever or history of fever in the last 48 hrs and lives in malaria endemic areas or has history of travel within the past 30 days to malaria-endemic areas and used microscopic and rapid diagnostic tests to investigation and confirm the disease and reviewed the previous year’s malaria data to establish a threshold level and to understand the trends of the disease. We conducted descriptive analysis followed by unmatched case-control study using a standard structured questionnaire to identify risk factors. We assessed presence of mosquito breeding site, Anopheles larvae in affected area of the town using observation
Results:
Out of 9633 suspected cases, 3448(35.7%) were confirmed malaria cases, with plasmodium municipal accounting for 2052(59%. Person 15 years and older were most affected with an Attack rate of 54%.Male were more affected than female with Attack rate of 46.5 per 1000 population. The most affected kebelle were Odeya kebelle with Attack rate 13.6 per 1000 population. Presence of mosquito breeding sites within less than 1000m distance to the community and households not having awareness on long lasting insecticide nets utilization was identified as a risk factor and associated with malaria outbreak with an Adjusted odds ratio of 16.29[95% CI=3.39-79.49,10.83(95%CI=2.24-52.42) respectively.
Conclusion
This was a malaria outbreak during the investigation in Dilla Town associated with presence of stagnant water and having poor awareness on long lasting insecticides nets use. We recommended improving awareness of long lasting insecticide nets utilization and environmental management through optimized community participation