Vol. 7, Issue 8, Part D (2021)

Abstract
Malaria had been a major concern all the time world over as it eluded treatment for a long time. Despite decades of great control and prevention efforts, it still remains a major global public health problem affecting all ages. For management of malaria, there’s a requirement to offer attention on specific group of individuals like children <5 years of age in the community. This is directly linked to the level of education, socioeconomic status, timely decision of the mothers who can seek, obtain, and use medication appropriately and it also depends upon the accessibility of health facility. The present study was undertaken with the aim to know the sign and symptoms, treatment seeking behaviour and exploring factors involved in the selection of different treatment options for febrile children under five years of age among the Gond tribe in the Babuchipidihi village of Laikera block of Jharsuguda district of Western Odisha where malaria remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among the said group of people. This was a Cross- sectional community based descriptive study which included women between the age of 20-55 years who were the mothers of the febrile children. In such situation only (7.33%) mothers seek the help of the government medical facility. The sources of initial treatment were self-treatment (32.66%), traditional healer (34%), community health workers (10.66%) and village health sub-centre (15.33%). Self treatment accounted for most of initial treatment sought by the sample respondents because of personal experience and inexpensiveness. So far as the preventive measures are concerned it requires relieving poverty and reducing cost of allopathic care with sufficient supplies of effective anti-malarial drugs and to improve malaria treatment skills in households of the community.