Promotion of public health awareness through Kiswahili: a survey of various diseases

Abstract

The need to promote public health by combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases is one of the themes of Millenium Development Goals that every developing nation strives to attain by the year 2015. Kenya, in its long-term national planning strategy (officially known as Kenya Vision 2030), endeavours to improve the overall livelihoods of Kenyans by providing preventive care at community and household level. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to provide the community with information about various diseases through a language that many people can understand, which is Kiswahili. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to collect and document important information on various diseases in Kiswahili. The information includes: the names of diseases in Kiswahili, their causes, symptoms, preventive measures and cure. This information will go along way in helping to create public health awareness and enable the people to prevent the various diseases hence reducing the cost of health care in Kenya