Abstract

Malaria remains a major health problem in Cameroon; It accounts for 38% of consultations, 24% of deaths and 36.8% of absenteeism in the country. The negative economic impact of malaria has encouraged a new control approach targeting companies. In this regard, a cross sectional study was conducted from February 2015 to June 2017 in 14 companies in the town of Douala. This study aimed at determining the prevalence, control practices of employees and identifying associated factors with malaria. A total of 2705 workers were interviewed and systematically screened for malaria using LED fluorescence microscopy (CyScope®). All positive cases were given a malaria treatment. The prevalence of malaria and asymptomatic malaria was 30.1% and 28.9% respectively; asymptomatic malaria accounted for 95.7% of all positive diagnostic test. Malaria infection was significantly higher in employees aged 36–60 years (30.5%) and having completed primary studies (36%). ITNs ownership and utilization were 86.36% and 77.23% respectively. The risk for malaria infection has significantly decreased with age and educational level while the employees’ level of education and size of households were significantly associated with the regular utilization of ITNs. This is the first study assessing malaria prevalence and risk factors in workplace in Cameroon and using a novel diagnostic tool. This study outlines a high prevalence of malaria infection, especially asymptomatic carriage, high rates of ITNs ownership and utilization, as well as the influence of level of education, age and household size as associated factors. Active case detection of asymptomatic carriers through systematic screening of employees at workplace and their treatment is feasible with the Cyscope microscope and could be a good complement to ongoing control strategies.

Highlights

  • Malaria remains the first endemic parasitic disease in the world

  • We demonstrated previously the utility of fluorescence-based microscopy techniques to achieve this early detection of malaria cases [2]

  • Findings of this study revealed that malaria remains prevalent at workplace in Douala with a high rate of asymptomatic carriage of malaria parasites

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Summary

Introduction

The disease is caused by parasites belonging to Plasmodium genus which are transmitted to humans through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. In 2017, malaria was responsible for an estimated 219 million clinical cases of illness and 435,000 deaths worldwide, with the majority of cases (92%) and deaths (93%) reported in subSaharan Africa (SSA) [1]. This disease is a hindrance to national growth in several African countries as it is felt in many life areas including education [2,3], agriculture [4], and especially workplace [5]. According to a report issued in 2011 by the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) consortium, malaria directly affects business turnover (increased health care costs) and indirectly the economic environment (increased absenteeism, decreased productivity, weakening of human capital, loss of savings, decrease in investments and tax revenues, reduction of the public health budget) [6]

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