Prevalence of Malaria among Febrile Patients Attending Government Hospitals in Ondo State, South-West Nigeria
F.O. Omoya1, K. O. Ajayi1, *
Abstract
Background:
The use of malaria infection prevalence among febrile patients is a valuable epidemiological surveillance tool.
Methods:
In this study, a cross sectional study was conducted among febrile patients in selected government Hospitals in Ondo State for malaria prevalence.
Results:
Plasmodium falciparum is the only encountered malaria parasite with prevalence values of 82.72% (426/515) and 80.19% (413/515) obtained using microscopy and RDTs respectively. The prevalence of malaria among the males (86.59%) was higher than the females (80.65%), all age groups in this study were vulnerable with highest infection rate of 89.66% among age group 11-20 years. The parasites densities ranged between 209 and 22310 parasites/μL with a mean parasitaemia of 5522.17±183.30 parasites/μL. The prevalence of malaria among the febrile participants that have used antimalarial drug before visiting the hospital is 82.94% (389/469) with the mean parasitaemia of 4615.21±188.14 parasites/μL while those that have used herbs before visiting the hospital had malaria prevalence of 85.03% (142/167) with the mean parasitaemia of 4913.81±330.20 parasites/μL.
Conclusion:
There was high prevalence of malaria among febrile patients. This finding will help improve the diagnosis and treatment of other febrile (non-malaria) infections, limit antimalarial usage to only malaria parasite-based test true positives and serve as a guide to combat malaria drug resistance in the study area.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Microbiology, Federal University of Technology, Akure PMB 704, Akure, Nigeria; Tel: (+234) 07038990588; E-mail: ooluyhemikehinde@yahoo.com
