Assessment of the Availability and Utilization of Medicines Used for Preventing and Treating Malaria in Public Health Facilities in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Malaria remains a major global public health and development challenge. It caused 216 million cases and 655,000 deaths worldwide in 2010, of which 81% of the cases and 91% of the deaths were from sub-Saharan Africa [1]. In Ethiopia, malaria also remains one of the most public health problems despite considerable effort made to control it [2-4]. Approximately 75% of the land mass where 68% of the total population lives is malarious [2]. The Federal democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Health estimated that there are more than 5 million clinical cases and thousands of deaths due to malaria each year [2]. However, the epidemiological pattern of the disease varies from place to place and even from time to time [5-7]. About 1 million confirmed clinical cases and 1,581 deaths were officially reported due to malaria in 2010. Malaria poses a significant impediment to social and economic development and the disease was responsible for the greatest economic burden upon most of the countries in the southern part of the Sahara. In 1995, the average gross domestic product (GDP) in malarias countries was five-fold lower compared to non-malaria countries [8]. The economic loss caused by malaria in Africa in 1995 was estimated at 800 million U.S dollars. By 1997 this figure has risen to USD 2 billion, an enormous health and socioeconomic burden to an already poor continent [9]. The burden of malaria has been intensified by the appearance of chloroquine-resistant plasmodium falciparum, which arouse in south East Asia and was first documented in east Africa in 1979. Since then, there have been reports of chloroquine resistance in most countries in Africa, with especially high resistance in east Africa. In addition, Abstract