Abstract:
Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a parasite transmitted through the bite of infected
female Anopheles mosquitoes. Nearly half of the world’s population was at risk of malaria ac cording to WHO report of 2018.The main objective of the study was to analyze malaria vulnera bility and generate malaria risk map of Dale Waberaworeda, using GIS and Remote Sensing.
Even though there is a decline in malaria transmission with some irregularities since 2014, still
malaria is among the biggest killer in the woreda. The environmental factors considered for the
analysis are temperature, rainfall, elevation, slope, soil, land use land cover, distance to streams
and distance from health stations. GIS and remote sensingwere used to examine associations be tween such variables of malaria favoring factors and the distribution of the vector mosquito re sponsible for malaria transmission. To assess the socio-economic aspects of the woreda house holds from six kebeles were systematically selected and gathered information through structured
questionnaire. To generate malaria hazard map, elevation, slope, temperature, rainfall, soil and
distance to streams factors are weighted and the weighted overlay technique was computed. For
vulnerability analysis, health station location in Spatial Analyst was used to generate factor
maps; and land use land cover map was used to generate element at risk map. To generate ma laria risk map of the woreda, land use land cover map that is the element at risk in the woreda,
the vulnerability map and the hazard map were overlaid using weighted overlay analysis tech nique in ArcGIS. The final risk map indicates that from the total area of the study 40.6% is very
high and high-risk zone whereas moderate risk zone accounts for 24.6%, low and very low risk
zones cover 19.5% and 15.3% of the study arearespectively. Malaria risk map of the study area
showed that there is no malaria risk free kebele within the woreda. Majority of the residents in
the woreda slept under insecticide treated net and used indoor residual spraying as a coping
mechanism. For malaria control and prevention the woreda health offices should use the malar ia risk map produced by using geographic information system and remote sensing,which shows
areas under different malaria risk levels and cost effective and manageable technique. Again, the
woreda health office should give awareness to people how to use drainage, ITN and other alter native means to control malaria effectively.
