Malaria knowledge and bed net use in three transmission settings in southern Africa

Malaria Journal

Table 4 Bed net ownership, access and use by study site

	Choma District	Nchelenge District	Mutasa District	Total
Population with access to an ITN within their household (%)	70.8	57.8	39.2	55.0
Population that slept under an ITN (%)	55.6	57.4	31.8	49.0
Children under 5 years old who slept under an ITN (%)	60.8	59.7	34.9	53.2
Households with at least one ITN (%)	78.2	77.8	69.9	75.3
Households with at least one ITN for every two people (%)	49.6	49.0	39.7	46.0
Households sprayed in the last 6 months (%)	2.3	14.5	42.9	21.9
Households with at least one ITN and/or sprayed by IRS in the last 6 months (%)	79.0	80.7	81.8	80.8
Households with at least one ITN for every two people and/or sprayed by IRS within the last 6 months (%)	51.6	55.9	64.7	58.1
Reasons for not owning a bed net at the household level^a
Nets not available	7.0	26.1	50.5	31.3
No mosquitoes	16.8	19.8	26.5	21.7
Too expensive	32.1	26.9	2.3	18.8
Don’t know where to get a bed net	22.5	21.6	0	13.7
Heat	3.5	0.6	3.4	2.2
Other reasons^a	10.8	1.4	7.0	5.5
Reasons for not sleeping under an available bed net at the individual level^b
Heat	3.2	1.0	10.1	5.5
Net is old, dirty or needs to be retreated	0.4	4.8	2.7	3.0
Not enough bed nets	2.8	1.1	0.2	1.0
Does not protect against mosquitoes	3.9	0	0	0.8
Lack of mosquitoes	5.2	0.5	17.4	9.0
Unable to hang over sleeping space	0.6	0.9	2.9	1.7
Net is itchy	1.7	0.1	1.4	1.0
Other reasons^b	0.6	0.9	0.3	0.6

Percentage total exceed 100 because of multiple responses
^aOther reasons for not owning a bed net included lack of protection against mosquitoes, nets only for children and pregnant women, not the rainy or malaria season and sleeping space is outside or changes too often
^bOther reasons for not sleeping under an available bed net included not the rainy or malaria season, keeping nets for children and pregnant women, sleeping space is outside, and frequent changes to sleeping place

ISSN: 1475-2875