Prevalence of Infection and Malaria Parasite Density among Under Five Children: A Case Study of Dunukofia Rural Community in Anambra State, Nigeria

Aim: Malaria still remains an overwhelming cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five years of age, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The study was carried out to evaluate malaria prevalence amongst children less than five years old.

Study Design: A cross sectional study was carried out. The study adopted a retrospective descriptive survey using the hospital records and diagnostic cross sectional survey by examination of blood samples across three variables: gender, age group and mosquito net usage.

Duration: The study was done in 2021 from the month of March to April in the rural community.

Methodology: Parasitological diagnosis was with Plasmodium falciparum histidine-rich protein 2-based malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) and microscopy of giemsa-stained blood smears. Demographic information was collected using questionnaire.

Results: Three hundred (300) children aged less than five years malaria infection status was investigate, 174 (58.00% ) of them were females while 126 (42.00%. ) were males. Twenty one percent (21.00%) of the respondents are <1 year, 23.33% (70) of them are between the ages of 2 to 3 years, while 55.67% (167) were 4 years and above. Current malaria prevalence was higher with microscopy (67.33%) than that of RDT (23.33%). Also, previous RDT results showed that there was a higher prevalence (73.56%) of malaria parasites in females than males (58.73%). The microscopy results showed that males had a higher prevalence (38.10%) of malaria parasites than females (12.64%). Overall gender result also revealed that males had a higher prevalence (96.83%) of malaria parasites than females (86.21%). There was a significant difference in the prevalence result with gender (P<0.05). Females had higher parasite density (28.05±15.390) than males (23.22±19.171), there was no significant difference (P>0.05). It further revealed that children from 4 years and above had higher intensity (29.68±17.357) while those of 1 year and below had the least (14.89±16.069). However, there was no significant difference in the malaria parasite among the age groups of patients (P>0.05).

Conclusion: Prevalence of malaria parasitaemia was still high in Dunukaofia, Anamba State, Nigeria despite various control measures and interventions put in place by WHO.