Vol. 8, Issue 2, Part B (2021)

Author(s): Mensur Yenus, Micheal Berhe, Micheal Brhane, Amanuel Kiflemariam and Kiros Sereke

Abstract: Diseases caused by Aedes mosquitoes mainly DF, CHIKN and yellow fever are emerging and reemerging globally. Dengue fever and CHIKN are well established in Eritrea that endemic of dengue fever were repeatedly seen. In addition to this CHIKN has become a public health problem specially at the western part. The strategies which were conducted against dengue fever were not resulted in to substantial reduction over the past years. As a result the ZMCP has introduced a community based strategy at keren, Anseba zone Eritrea as a pilot and evaluating its effectiveness it will be replicated to other sites. It was aims at increasing community awareness by visit door-to-door and emptying or elimination non-permanent water containers and covering permanent water storage used as Aedes mosquito breeding habitats. During this intervention six administrative areas and 39 neighborhoods were participated. In which a total of 63,438 population and 106 facilitators were participated during this intervention. 13,704 HH and 26,852 containers were inspected by these facilitators and they found that a total of 10,626 HH and 9,236 containers were found to be positive for larva/pupa. During the training given door-to-door a total of 25,036 community members from all ages were trained on dengue and CHIKN and as a result community knowledge on mosquito immature stages were increased from 8.4% before the intervention to 77.8% after the intervention. Consequently entomological induces were dramatically reduced with in short period of time. This newly adapted community based intervention would be very effective if a new communication strategy called COMBI and community based incentives for community leaders/facilitators have introduced.