Assessment of Malaria Risk Using GIS and Multi Criteria: The Case Study of East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Malaria is one of the most severe public health problems worldwide with 300 to 500 million cases and about one million deaths reported to date, 90% of which were reported from Sub Saharan African countries like Ethiopia. The main objective of the study was Assessment of malaria risk areas by using the GIS-based MCA approaches in East Gojjam zone. Weighted overlay technique of multi-criteria analysis was used to develop the malaria risk map. The malaria risk map was produced depending upon the overlay analysis of the malaria hazard map and some factors like land use land cover, population density, health stations. The malaria risk map was classified into four suitability index such as very highly suitable, high suitable, moderately suitable, and low suitable. The result shows that around 21.02% areas is very highly suitable for malaria risk, 24.49% is high suitable, 24.66% is moderately suitable and 29.83 % is low suitable for malaria risk areas. It is suggested that effective identification and mapping of malaria risk areas can be made using geospatial tools, to contribute for the prevention system easily manageable and controlling the disease.