Socio- economic and Environmental Determinants of Filariasis in Matara District of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Filaria is a parasite disease which causes everlasting mental and physical suffering to the affected. The World Health Organization declared Sri Lanka as a country which wiped out filariasis from the land in the year 2016. However, the incidents of filarial are still reporting and causes to spread the disease have not being resolved yet. Therefore, the present study which was conducted in the year 2015 is serve as a case for identification of social, economic and environment factors that largely contributes to spread the filariasis disease. The study includes both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected from a sample of 70 families to represent 20% of the patients  out of 350 that have been identified during the period from year 2000- 2015 in the district of Matara in Sri Lanka. The main objective of the study was to identify the root causes for the filariasis and to perform statistical analysis for the selected stratified sample. The factors considered in this study include population density, age group, gender, low land areas, hydro areas, swamp, barren land and garbage disposal. It was revealed that there was positive relationship among those factors and filariasis disease.