Background: Mosquitoes can transmit various diseases like Malaria, Filaria, Japanese Encephalitis, Dengue and Chikungunya. Awareness about the risk of mosquito bite and source reduction can prevent the transmission of these diseases. The present study was undertaken to assess the awareness of rural population about mosquito borne diseases and  preventive methods against mosquito bite and the personal protective measures taken by them.

Methodology: A cross- sectional study was conducted in the rural field practice area of a tertiary care teaching institute in Medchal- Malkajgiri district of Telangana state during March 2015- May 2015. A predesigned pre tested questionnaire was used for data collection from 270 participants. Data was entered into MS Excel sheet & analyzed by using SPSS version 16.

Results: Among the 270 participants, 88.89% knew that mosquitoes could transmit serious diseases. 67.4% participants had heard about malaria. 9.25% of the participants could not name a mosquito borne disease. 28.89% participants did not know the breeding sites of mosquito. 69.63% participants used one or the other personal protective measures (PPM). The most common method of PPM used was mosquito coils (28.72%).

Conclusion: The present study shows that though most of the respondents could identify that mosquitoes transmit serious diseases, there is a gap in the knowledge regarding the diseases transmitted by the mosquitoes& their breeding sites. Their knowledge about insecticide treated bed nets is very poor. There is a need to educate the rural population about mosquito breeding sites and source reduction to prevent mosquito borne diseases.

Keywords: Mosquito borne diseases, awareness, personal protective measures, rural area.

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Dr Vishnu Nandan Koduri

Department of Community Medicine, MediCiti Institute of Medical Sciences, Ghanpur Village,

Medchal- Makkajgiri District, Telangana State, India

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