No abstract

Background Novel corona virus, named COVID-19, has spread rapidly to other countries like Italy, Iran and South Korea and affected all people, especially health-care providers. Therefore, due to the rapid spread of the disease in Iran, the aim of the present study was to explore psychological distress experienced by Iranian health-care providers in the first few weeks of the corona virus outbreak. Methods The present qualitative study was conducted on 18 Iranian health-care providers exposed to COVID − 19 using a content analysis method. Purposeful sampling was used to select the participants and continued until data saturation was reached. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and then the qualitative data were analyzed through direct content analysis. Results By analyzing 236 primary codes, two main categories were extracted from the experiences of health-care providers during corona virus outbreak. The first category included Occupational demands with three sub-categories: nature of illness, Organizational demands and social demands. The second category was Supportive resources included personal support and social support. Conclusions The results of this study found that there were some barriers and challenges to medical personnel exposed to COVID-19 that caused psychological distress. Some of these problems related to the nature of illness, others related to social and organizational demands and some of supportive resources buffer the relationship between occupational demands and psychological distress.

BackgroundSince malaria is one of the foremost public health problems in Iran, a malaria elimination phase has been initiated and application of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) is an important strategy for control. Success and effectiveness of this community based strategy largely dependent on proper use of LLINs. In this context, to determine the community’s knowledge and practices about malaria and LLINs, a study was conducted in Rudan County, one of the important malaria endemic areas in southeast of Iran.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, 400 households in four villages were selected by cluster randomly sampling method. Community knowledge and practices about malaria and LLINs including symptoms and transmission of malaria and washing, drying and using of bed nets were investigated using pre-tested structured questionnaires. The data were analysed using SPSS.16 software.ResultsIn this study nearly 89% of the respondents knew at least one symptom of malaria and 86.8% considered malaria as an important disease. The majority of respondents (77.8%) believed that malaria transmits through mosquito bite and 72.5% mentioned stagnated water as a potential mosquito breeding place. About 46% of respondents mentioned the community health worker as the main source of their information about malaria. Approximately 44.8% of studied population washed the LLINs once in six months and 92% of them mentioned that they dry the bed nets in direct sunlight. While 94% of households reported they received one or more LLINs by government and 60.8% of respondents mentioned that LLINs were the main protective measure against malaria, only 18.5% of households slept under bed nets the night before the survey, this use rate is lower than the targeted coverage (80%) which is recommended by World Health Organization.ConclusionAlthough, majority of studied population were aware of the symptoms and cause of malaria, a majority had misconceptions about LLINs. Therefore, appropriate educational intervention by trained health workers should be developed for a behaviour change and motivating people to use LLINs which would improve malaria elimination programme.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1475-2875-13-511) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

BackgroundMalaria is a major vector-borne disease in tropical and sub-tropical countries caused by Plasmodium infection. It is one the most important health problem in south and southeast of Iran. Since Iran has recently launched to the elimination phase of malaria and vector control is one of the main strategies for elimination, this study was conducted to determine the topographical distribution of malaria vectors in Minab County, one of the important malaria endemic areas in south of Iran.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, six villages in three topographically different sites namely coastal plain, foothill and mountainous areas were selected by simple random sampling. The anopheline larvae were collected using the standard dipping method. The specimens were identified using a morphology based-key. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS ver.16 software.ResultsIn total, 3,841 anopheles larvae were collected from 24 larval habitats. They consisted of ten species: Anopheles moghulensis (25.23%), Anopheles stephensi (24.47%), Anopheles dthali (19.14%), Anopheles culicifacies (9.63%), Anopheles fluviatilis (7.52%), Anopheles superpictus (5.62%), Anopheles turkhudi (5.55%), Anopheles pulcherrimus (1.93%), Anopheles multicolor (0.47%), and Anopheles apoci (0.44%). Most species were distributed in different topographies and only An. Stephensi and An. culicifacies, the main malaria vectors in Iran, were significantly associated with the altitude of studied areas. An. moghulensis, An. stephensi and An. dthali were the most widespread species and were, respectively predominant in Coastal plain, foothill and mountainous areas.ConclusionResults of this study have revealed that there are many malaria vectors that are distributed in Minab County and some of them are expected to be predominant in areas with special topographic characteristics. This finding can provide a basis for effective planning and implementation of evidence-based malaria vector intervention strategies towards vector control, which may help in malaria elimination in the study area.