| Summary: | Background & objectives: The involvement of private drug vendors in malaria treatment isparticularly high in developing countries and understanding their practices and knowledge aboutantimalarials and malaria treatment will aid in devising strategies to increase the correct use ofantimalarials and improve adherence to the government’s malaria drug policy. Results of a study onthe knowledge and practices of the private drug vendors conducted in seven districts in Sri Lanka,mostly in malarious areas are presented.Methods: Data on awareness of government’s malaria drug policy, practice of issuing antimalarials,knowledge about malaria and antimalarial drugs were collected from the drug vendors using pretestedquestionnaire in vernacular language. Data were statistically analysed using Stata 8.2. Chisquaretest was carried out for individual explanatory variables and a logistic regression model wasapplied taking all response variables as binary outcome.Results: Vendors’ knowledge on antimalarials was poor with 58% of the vendors being unaware ofthe government malaria drug policy in the country. Also, the advice provided to customers buyingantimalarials was limited. However, the majority of the private vendors emphasised that they wereaware of the importance of case confirmation before treatment as stressed in the national policy.Although, the vendors did not have a high awareness of national drug policies they were only foundselling chloroquine and primaquine as recommended by the Ministry of Health.Interpretation & conclusion: In recent years Sri Lanka, as a whole, has experienced very littlemalaria. The reduction in demand for antimalarials due to low incidence levels may have influencedthe knowledge and awareness on antimalarials and government drug policies. However, since lowlevels of malaria do not guarantee that epidemics will not occur, attempts to educate private drugvendors as a part of an organised control programmes are of major importance.
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