Investigation of the Efficacy of Home-based Chloroquine Treatment on Plasmodium falciparum Malaria in under-Five Children in Jos Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

This chapter aims to investigate the efficacy of home-based oral chloroquine treatment on Plasmodium falciparum malaria among under-five children in Jos Metropolis, Nigeria. This is a cross-sectional study of 93 children with and without malaria. Malaria was diagnosed using microscopy of Leishman's stained thick and thin blood films, P. falciparum parasitemia was determined using standard microscopy techniques, and a complete blood count was performed using a Beckman Coulter Analyzer. The body temperature on admission was significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the control non-malaria group (36.80oC ± 0.07oC) than in the three malaria groups respectively. The mean body temperature of chloroquine treated children with malaria was significantly lower (p < 0.05) (37.94 ± 0.30 oC) than that of children presenting with severe malaria (39.24±0.47 oC). Parasitemia was significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the pre-admission chloroquine treated group (18.13% ± 0.49%) than in the non-treated simple malaria group (34.35% ± 2.75%) and severe malaria group (43.57% ± 5.49%), respectively. The average number of days before the cases were reported in the hospital was 4.80 days. The hemoglobin concentration of 7.23 ± 1.01 g/dl obtained for non-treated malaria patients indicates a mild anemia, whereas the hemoglobin concentration values of 9.60 ± 0.51 g/dl and 10.52 ± 0.16 g/dl obtained for chloroquine treated children and control children respectively show that the two groups of children were not anemic and the values obtained were within the normal range. This study has demonstrated that there was positive impact of home-based chloroquine treatment on Plasmodium falciparum parasitemia and also in agreement with a study in Jos [1], shows reduced degree of anemia in children under 5 years with Plasmodium falciparum in Jos Metropolis of Nigeria. Similar research reports from Tanzania [2] and Gambia [3] also demonstrated that unsupervised malaria treatment at home was highly effective using Home-management of malaria (HMM) strategy. Standardization and possible implementation of HMM need to be considered as part of malaria control strategies.