The negative economic importance of malaria on households. A case of Morogoro rural and Peri urban area

This study investigates the negative economic importance of malaria on households in Morogoro rural and peri urban. It specifically aimed at: 1. assessing the extent to which malaria affects production at the household level. 2. Ranking different factors which contribute to reduced household income.3. Assessing the manpower lost due to deaths of adult household members hence affecting the economy. The study was conducted using cross-sectional research design, structured and standardised interview schedules as well as personal observation. Using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), descriptive statistics were obtained that is frequencies and percentages in accordance with the objectives of the study. The study was undertaken in Morogoro Rural District and peri urban area, the entire sample size of the population was 100 respondents whereby 40 heads of households were randomly selected from peri urban and 60 from Morogoro Rural area. Major negative effects of malaria which were obtained from the study included reduced households income, reduced households production, reduced farm performance, effect on family labour. It was clearly shown that Malaria affected more the Rural areas than Peri- Urban due to the fact that the rural areas where seen to have low economic status hence their efforts to fight against Malaria was very limited. Because of that it was obviously seen that the Peri- Urban areas had few death due to Malaria in their Households because they could better fight against the disease in comparison to the Rural areas. Not only that but also the Level of Education was seen to low in Rural areas compared to the Peri –Urban, this brought a very big difference regarding the capability of fighting the diseases between the Rural and Peri- Urban areas. After all these assessments it was clearly found that Malaria had bigger negative economic importance on rural households in relation to Peri – Urban. Since that difference is not very big the recommendations regarding the efforts which have to be taken in fighting the disease have to consider not only the Rural areas but also the Peri- Urban and Urban as well