Ownership and utilisation of long lasting insecticide treated nets following free distribution campaign in south West Nigeria

Abstract

IntroductionMalaria has proven to be the most horrendous and intractable amongst the health problems confronting countries in the sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims to determine the ownership and utilisation of long lasting insecticide treated nets following free distribution campaign in a state in South West Nigeria.MethodsMulti-stage sampling technique was used to recruit 2560 households spread across the 16 LGAs of the state. Interviewer administered standardized questionnaire was used for the survey. Data analysis was done using Stata 10 software.ResultsSixty eight point six percent (68.6%) of the households had at least one under-five child living in the household while 32.6% had at least one pregnant woman living in the household. A total of 2440 (95.3%) households received LLIN during the campaign. Overall, the utilization rate for all respondents was 58.5%. Despite the fact that 2440 households received LLINs during the campaign, only 84.3% of them were seen to have hung theirs during the survey.ConclusionCoverage and ownership of LLINs increased significantly following the free distribution campaign. There was a discrepancy between net possession and net use with rate of use lower than possession. Post distribution educational campaign should be incorporated into future distribution campaigns to help increase net utilisation.

Free mass distribution of long lasting insecticidal nets lead to high levels of LLIN access and use in Madagascar, 2010: A cross-sectional observational study

“…The proportion of the population using a LLIN (84.2%) was higher than population LLIN access, supporting the hypothesis that there is a strong culture of LLIN acceptance in Madagascar and there are minimal barriers to use when nets are available in contrast to other settings where LLIN distribution led to increased ownership but did not result in a concomitant increase in use as expected [ 24 – 32 ].…”

Caregivers’ knowledge and utilization of long-lasting insecticidal nets among under-five children in Osun State, Southwest, Nigeria

“…Nigeria bears the greatest malaria burden among countries in the world, with over 300,000 malarial deaths each year, most of them occurring in children less than 5 years of age [ 5 ]. In Nigeria, malaria is responsible for 30% of the under-five mortality and 11% of maternal mortality rate [ 6 ].…”

Free versus purchased mosquito net ownership and use in Budondo sub-county, Uganda

“…On the demand-side, much attention has been paid to the need for subsidization of the cost (or free) of bed nets as a means to increase bed net coverage, because cost has been identified as an important barrier to bed net ownership [ 16 ]. However, mosquito bed net ownership itself is not always synonymous with proper utilization [ 17 ]. Despite the overall accepted effectiveness of “universal coverage”, generally defined by 1 LLIN per 2 people, through free-distribution campaigns, there remain barriers to the use of bed nets in vulnerable households, which make rapid scale-up of bed net coverage difficult to achieve [ 16 ].…”