Investigation of Community’s Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Zoonotic Diseases across their Educational Background in Mekelle, Northern Ethiopia

Many infectious diseases are transmitted from animals to human and the other way. A cross-sectional study was conducted from December 2017 to May 2018 to investigate community’s knowledge; attitude and practice towards zoonotic diseases across different educational background. Semi structured questionnaire was conducted on randomly selected 330 volunteer study participants of different socio demographic characteristics. Age, religion, education, occupation and marital status of the respondents were significantly associated with their knowledge on zoonotic disease in which respondents with the age group greater than 15 years, orthodox and catholic religious affiliations, health professionals and married once had greater knowledge towards zoonotic disease (p<0.05). The role of education of the respondents on their attitude towards zoonotic disease treatment, prevention, control and advantages of vaccine provision were statistically significant. Of those who have positive attitude on zoonotic treatment, about 35.8% of them were college and university level graduates while 49.2% of those who did not have positive attitude on the zoonotic disease treatment were illiterate. Educational level of the respondents was significantly associated with their practices towards zoonotic diseases (p<0.05). Respondents with lower educational level had higher contact with animals, consume more raw meat, and didn’t take pre exposure vaccination; and immediate action for infected animals by zoonotic diseases. In conclusion, the community knowledge, attitude and practices on zoonotic diseases across different educational background seem below the anticipated levels, hence providing awareness creation training to the community and imparting health education in one health approach towards zoonotic diseases is very important