People in Kiboga district in central Uganda have refused to sleep under mosquito nets fearing that they will become infertile.
This was disclosed by the Kiboga District Public Health Nurse, Diana Lutaya at a Child Health Now campaign at Kiboga town council, which was organised by World Vision on Thursday 14 June. She said that despite a malaria prevalence of 45% annually in Kiboga district, the people there have not changed their behaviour to sleeping under mosquito nets. Even though the nets were given to them free of charge, many fear they will cause side effects.
“Most people in the district have completely refused to use the nets arguing that they might become barren if they use the mosquito nets to guard them against mosquito bites,” said Lutaya. She said that some people argue that if the insecticide treated mosquito nets can kill mosquitoes, what about human beings?
She revealed that 67 children out of 1000 die before their first birthday in Kiboga, and that most of these deaths can be attributed to malaria. She pleaded to the community in Kiboga district to use mosquito nets to avoid getting malaria.
This is not the only place in Uganda where mosquito nets are not used for their intended purpose. In Kibaale district in western Uganda, people have used the insecticide treated mosquito nets to cage their chickens.
The programme officer for World Vision in Kiboga district, William Mubiru, decried the lack of health workers in rural areas and asked government to recruit more health workers to provide services to the people in need.
Dr. Roy William Mayega from Makerere University epidemiological department in Uganda said that the belief that insecticide treated mosquito nets can cause infertility is a myth. “There is no scientific evidence to prove that if people sleep under the insecticide treated mosquito nets they can become infertile,” said Dr. Mayega.
“The insecticide treated mosquito nets have no side effects whatsoever to human life and people thinking that they get sick if they slept under the nets are exposing themselves to mosquito bites and could end up getting malaria,” said Dr. Mayega.
