Abstract
Malaria infection is one of the most common disease of public health importance afflicting millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria diagnosis and surveillance rely predominantly on rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). This study investigated the performance of Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) against microscopy of stained blood for Plasmodium falciparum of patients attending some Primary Health Centres in Ardo-Kola LGA, Taraba State. Five hundred and eighty five (585) blood samples were collected and examined for Plasmodium falciparum on the microscope. Rapid Diagnostic Tests were also used for examination. The overall result showed a prevalence of 446 (76.23%). The infection found female, 199 (82.23%) to be more exposed to malaria than male, 247 (72.01%) with no significant difference (χ2=4.381; P≥0.05). With regards to age, females aged ≥51 years were more infected than other age groups, while male aged 21-30 years were more infected with malaria than the other age groups. There was no significant difference with malaria infection between the age groups (χ2=2.207; P≥0.05). The performance of RDTs against microscopy showed that RDT used had a sensitivity of 66.91% and specificity of 58.52%. The positive predictive value of 33.45% and negative predictive value of 85.02% were found for the RDT used. The present study demonstrated that RDTs can act as diagnostic tool to manage malaria in resource poor settings with limited, access to expert microscopy as they are easy to use and perform better than microscopy. It is recommended that malaria Rapid Diagnosis Tests can be used in endemic areas in Nigeria.
Highlights
Malaria is one of the most important public health problems in terms of morbidity and mortality, causing more than 200 million cases and 445,000 deaths every year [1]
A total of 216 million estimated malaria cases occurred in 2010, 81% of which were reported in the Africa region (5%) the number of malaria deaths was estimated to be 445,000 in 2017; 91% of whom occurred in the African region, 6% in South-East Asia and 3% in eastern Mediterranean Region the proportion exposed to malaria parasites has decreased during the last century, the absolute number of people at risk for malaria infection increased from 0.8 billion in 1900 to 3.3 billion in 2017, as a consequence of the Central African Journal of Public Health 2020; 7(4): 222-226 absolute increase of the population living in malaria mortality rates showed a global reduction of 25% between in 2017 [1,2,3]
In all P. falciparum was detected by rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) in 307 persons
Summary
Malaria is one of the most important public health problems in terms of morbidity and mortality, causing more than 200 million cases and 445,000 deaths every year [1]. A total of 216 million estimated malaria cases occurred in 2010, 81% of which were reported in the Africa region (5%) the number of malaria deaths was estimated to be 445,000 in 2017; 91% of whom occurred in the African region, 6% in South-East Asia and 3% in eastern Mediterranean Region the proportion exposed to malaria parasites has decreased during the last century, the absolute number of people at risk for malaria infection increased from 0.8 billion in 1900 to 3.3 billion in 2017, as a consequence of the Central African Journal of Public Health 2020; 7(4): 222-226 absolute increase of the population living in malaria mortality rates showed a global reduction of 25% between in 2017 [1,2,3]. The current distribution of human-pathogenic Plasmodium species shows preponderance of P. falciparum in tropical Africa, while P. vivax prevails over P. falciparum in South America. Both P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. knowlesi are prevalent in south-easthern Asia and western pacific. P. ovale is widespread principally in tropical Africa [1]
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