Research Questions, and 8-entry Annotated Bibliography (Essay Sample)

APPLICATION: Introduction, Research Questions, and 8-entry Annotated Bibliography
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APPLICATION: Introduction, Research Questions, and 8-entry Annotated Bibliography
This paper analyzes the malaria scourge in sub-Saharan Africa which has claimed many lives. It is difficult to understand why this continues to happen despite the fact billions of dollars in donor funding and government efforts are being used in malaria eradication efforts. Therefore, the paper analyzes the deficiencies in donor and government effort in malaria control and prevention efforts.
Narasimhan, V., & Attaran, A. (2003). Roll back malaria? The scarcity of international aid for malaria control. Malaria Journal, 2(1), 8.
For any intervention measure against malaria to succeed it requires money. Most sub-Saharan governments if not all have enormous budget deficits malaria which make malaria intervention measures lack adequate budgetary allocations. It is expected that this void is filled by donors however this is not usually the case as donors aid in health is normally channeled towards developing health infrastructure such as construction of hospitals and buying equipment thus resulting in scarcity of international aid for malaria interventions.
Waddington, C., Martin, J., & Walford, V. (2005). Trends in international funding for malaria control. prepared by the HLSP Institute (London) for the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, August.
Over the years there has been an emerging trend whereby donors have been putting the bulk of their money in financing the buying of malaria treatment drugs instead of malaria prevention and eradication efforts. As a result, this has resulted in many new cases of malaria being reported since very little money has been put its prevention efforts.
Nyanchongi, B. O. Malaria and coinfections: Challenges for disease control in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria has become almost impossible to control in sub-Saharan Africa. This is because majority of the population are illiterate hence lack basic information about the disease. The situation is compounded further by sub-Saharan governments which do a great job in ensuring that their hospitals are stocked with malarial drugs instead of focusing on prevention. Governments have failed to take the proactive approach of sensitizing the public about malaria prevention that many pregnant women do not sleep under mosquito nets not because they do not want to but because they do not know it is a malaria prevention technique.
Keiser, J., Utzinger, J., De Castro, M. C., Smith, T. A., Tanner, M., & Singer, B. H. (2004). Urbanization in sub-saharan Africa and implication for malaria control. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 71(2 suppl), 118-127.
Over the last decade a wave of rural urban migration has hit most sub-Saharan African countries. Most of the people who migrate to urban areas end up living in informal settlements because these cities have an acute housing problem. These informal settlements are characterized by drainage problems thus stagnant water is a common phenomenon in these neighborhoods. Therefore, governments have failed in their responsibility of developing good drainage networks thus indirectly aiding the spread of malaria.
Bloland, P. B., Kachur, S. P., & Williams, H. A. (2003). Trends in antimalarial drug deployment in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Experimental Biology, 206(21), 3761-3769.
Deployment of antimalarial drugs in sub-Saharan Africa is a responsibility of governments. However, this system is riddled with bureaucracies which make the supply efforts to be slow. This results in malaria patients receiving drugs when it is too late to save them. Another trend is the supply of outdated malaria drugs which have no effect on malaria patients sine the parasite that causes malaria has grown resistant towards the drugs.
Arrow, K. J., Panosian, C., & Gelband, H. (2004). Maximizing the Effective Use of Antimalarial Drugs.
The citizens of any country are the ones who determine the success of any public health policy by effective utilization of the services offered. However, they can only effectively utilize these services if they are sensitized about these services in the first place. Sensitization is the responsibility of the government. Surprisingly many sub-Saharan African governments have failed to conduct effective public awareness campaigns about the importance of using antimalarial drugs. This has resulted in many people contracting and dying from the disease.
Abu-Raddad, L. J., Patnaik, P., & Kublin, J. G. (2006). Dual infection with HIV and malaria fuels the spread of both diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.Science, 314(5805), 1603-1606.
Malaria control has become tricky due to the HIV/AIDs scourge in sub-Saharan Africa. This is because it is an opportunistic infection which affects HIV positive individuals thus the likelihood of more cases of malaria infections being reported increases with increase in HIV infections. Therefore, most donors and governments have failed to merge their HIV campaigns with malaria prevention,
Guyatt, H. L., & Snow, R. W. (2004). Impact of malaria during pregnancy on low birth weight in sub-Saharan Africa. Clinical microbiology reviews, 17(4), 760-769.
Many children being born in sub-Saharan Africa today are born having less than the standard weight for newborns. This has been blamed on governments who fail to put in place the right interventions to prevent the spread of malaria to pregnant women by failing to carry out effective sensitization campaigns.
Rationale for selection of items
For a long time the role that donors and governments play in malaria prevention and control has not been well understood. All the articles above fill this knowledge gap by explaining the role that governments and donor play in malaria control and the deficiencies they have in carrying out this role. The articles support existing research in that they all agree on one fact that the main reason why malaria is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa is the ineffective malaria control and prevention techniques employed by donors and governments.
Introduction
In sub-Saharan Africa malaria has been ranked as the number one killer of children under the age of five. Pregnant women and also travellers who are non-immune to malaria travelling from areas which are malaria free are also vulnerable to this disease. Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that sub-Saharan Africa had 89% of all malaria reported cases while deaths from malaria stood at 91%. Therefore, do the health policies about malaria in sub-Saharan Africa at fault or is it the people tasked with implementing them who are incompetent. In this study the reasons that make malaria so prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa despite it not only being treatable but also curable will be explored. Hence, it will help in determining why sub-Saharan...