Abstract
Malaria is hyper endemic in Ghana with perennial transmission afflicting and affecting people of all ages and it is a major cause of illness and death in Ghana, particularly among pregnant women. The study sought to find out the knowledge of Malaria and preventive practices among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Manhyia District Hospital. The study was carried out at the Manhyia District Hospital. A descriptive study design was adopted employing a quantitative approach and a simple random sampling technique was used to select 103 pregnant women attending ANC at the Manhyia Hospital. The research made use of questionnaire as a data collection instrument and Closed ended questionnaire were used for data collection. Primary data were coded and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16.0).After that, the primary data were summarised and displayed in tables and figures. Malaria was perceived as when body temperature rises and it can be transmitted by a mosquito bite. Fever was identified as a symptom of Malaria as well as pain in the joints, vomiting and loss of appetite. Practices that have been used to prevent malaria were the use of mosquito net (46%); keeping clean environment (24%) use of insecticide (28%) and wearing protective clothing (2%). Continuous efforts at providing necessary information by the health ministry are needed to control and reduce incidence of malaria and improve knowledge among the general public.
Highlights
Malaria infection during pregnancy is a major public health problem in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world and it poses substantial risks to the mother, her fetus and the neonate (WHO, 2010)
Pregnant women are at risk of been infected with malaria because their immunity reduces during malaria and this puts them at risk of anaemia and other health issues including death (BouyouAkotet et al, 2003)
From the figure,22 (22%) of the respondents indicated that Malaria is when one is shivering and vomiting,33(33%) indicated that Malaria is when body temperature rises while 30(3%) indicated that malaria is when one has fever and 15 (15%) indicated that Malaria is when one cannot eat
Summary
Malaria infection during pregnancy is a major public health problem in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world and it poses substantial risks to the mother, her fetus and the neonate (WHO, 2010). Severe anaemia causes 10,000 deaths in pregnant women every year in Africa, with malaria causing 3-15% of anaemia, 814% of low birth weight, and 3-8% of infant mortality (Guyatt et al, 2001; Steketee et al, 2001). More than 30 million women in Nigeria and malaria endermic areas such as Ghana become pregnant and are at risk of infection with Plasmodium falciparum. This result is high prevalence of patent parasitaemia and clinical malaria in pregnancy (Adefioye et al, 2007). Malaria is hyper endemic in Ghana with perennial transmission afflicting and affecting people of all ages and it is a major cause of illness and death in Ghana, among pregnant women (Ministry of Health, 2010)
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