Prevalence of Malaria Infections Among Patients in Gimbie Adventist Hospital Western Wollega, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Malaria is a disease caused by protozoan parasites belonging to the genus Plasmodium. The five species of the parasite in human are P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae, P.ovale and P. knowlesi. It is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in young African children. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of malaria infection and associated factors among patients attending Gimbie Adventist Hospital in West Wollega, Oromia, Ethiopia. First, a retrospective study was carried out for the past ten years (2006-2016) to study the prevalence of malaria in the study area. Second, malaria suspected patients basedcross-sectional study was carried out from March to June, 2017. A random samplingtechnique was carried out to select representative study participants among the patient’s members. Structured questionnaires (n=130) and blood sample examinations were used for data collection. The data was entered and analyzed using SPSS 20 version. The prevalence of malaria in males was 71(65.7%) and in females were 37(34.3%). The greatest number of malaria case tested in the age group of 16-30 years old was 52(48.1%). Among 384 Malaria suspected patients who were recruited and ascertained for parasitaemia from the blood sample test, 108 patients were malaria positive. The overall prevalence of malaria infection was 28.1%, of which 58 (53.7%) were positive for P. falciparum and 34 (31.5%) for P. vivax and the remaining 16(14.8%) were mixed (P. falciparum + P. vivax). Major Plasmodium species identified in this study was P. falciparum (53.7%). Out of the screened patients 69.2% responded to sleep under the ITNs the previous night. The coverage of IRs was observed to be 12.3% during the study period. The higher prevalence of malaria could be the result of several factors as explained in this study. Therefore, effective malaria control measures should be implemented in order to reduce the prevalence of malaria infection among patients.