Community-based programmes involving local
responsibility and for the participation in the
elimination of breeding sites are the only cost effective
and sustainable ways to ensure control
in any dengue-affected country, in particular, in
poorly resourced countries. However, in
Cambodia, community participation has been
implemented primarily by international
organizations, NGOs, government departments
and vertical disease control programmes. Local
knowledge and local institutions, including those
that would serve to achieve the same goals,
have largely been overlooked. In this study,
community members claimed that communitybased
dengue control occurred, but, in practice,
people had limited opportunity to participate in
planning and managing dengue prevention and
control in their own villages, and so had little
interest in or awareness of the need to ensure
that basic control activities were sustained.