An investigation of symptomatic malaria parasitaemia and anaemia in nursery and primary school children in Buea District Cameroon.

Abstract

To investigate the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia and anemia in nursery and primary school children and correlate parasite density with haemoglobin levels. Cross sectional study. Samples were collected from children attending the Saint Theresa's bilingual school and the Government Primary school, Buea, South West Province, Cameroon. 297 nursery and primary school children two to 11 years old selected based on parental consent. MAIN OUTOME MEASURES: Relationship between asymptomatic malaria and anaemia. The prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in children was 30.3%. Parasite prevalence and density was independent of age and sex (p > 0.05). The mean haemoglobin level for parasitaemic children was 11.9 g/dl (+/- SD1.1) compared with 12.1 g/dl (+/- 1.2) for non-parasitaemic children. The difference was not significant (t = 1.918, p > 0.05). Anaemia when present was mild. No correlation was found between malaria parasite density and haemoglobin levels (r = -0.065; p > 0.05). Asymptomatic malaria was accompanied by low grade parasitaemia, which did not seem to have a significant effect on haemoglobin levels.