Rapid Assessment of Prevalence of Malaria among Patients of a Referral Hospital in Oweri South East Nigeria

Abstract

Malaria has social consequences and exerts a heavy burden on economic development in Nigeria. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of malaria among out and in patients attending a referral hospital in Owerri South-East Nigeria between January and October 2019. Two hundred and thirty-five patients consisting of 114 males and 121 females were engaged in the study after obtaining their consent. Capillary blood samples were collected from finger-pricked blood using Rapid Diagnostic Test kit (ICT COMBO, Core Diagnostic, U.K) for detection of Plasmodium falciparum and pan malaria antigen Pf/Pan for non-falciparum species. The data were collated and analysed with descriptive and chi-square statistics with significance set at 0.5. The result recorded an overall malaria prevalence of 62.55%. Female patients had significantly higher (77.72%) malaria prevalence than males (51.75%) (p<0.05). Age-related prevalence of malaria within the study period showed that malaria prevalence across the age groups exceeded 50%, except for the age group 40-49 years with a prevalence of 45.61%. However, the age-related prevalence of malaria was not significantly different, (p >0.05). The result reveals an active transmission of malaria parasites which constitute a public health burden. There is a need for improved effort in the prevention and control of this scourge.