Prevalence of Hospital-Based Malaria among Children in Jos, North Central Nigeria

Background: In Nigeria, malaria is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in children. Nigeria government has put in efforts on malaria control and prevention. This is in consonance with Roll back malaria initiative’s objectives. Thus, with the expiration of RBM 2010 target deadline for malaria, there is a need to assess the prevalence of malaria among the risk group in this malaria endemic area, to ascertain how far we have gone in achieving the initiatives objectives.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of malaria among children.
Method: This is a hospital based cross- sectional study of 600 children with or without malaria attending various health care centers in the urban area of Jos, North central Nigeria. Giemsa stained thick and thin blood films were examined for malaria parasite using x 100 (oil immersion) objective.
Result: Six hundred children with or without malaria were recruited for the study, in which 287 (47.8%) were boys. Based on microscopical diagnosis of malaria, 306 (51.00%) of the children had malaria parasitaemia. 48.06% prevalence rate was obtained among febrile under-5 children. One hundred and twenty-one (20.17%, 121/600) of the children had fever out of which 103 (85.12%, 103/121) had fever and the remaining had no fever. The geometric mean of the parasites was 385.85 parasites/ul and 20 (6.53%) of the children with malaria parasitaemia had parasite density> 500 parasites/μl. Malaria parasitaemia was relatively higher in children aged 5-9 years.
Conclusion: There is still a high prevalence of hospital-based malaria among children aged 1-day to18 years in the urban areas of Jos, north central Nigeria. Consequently, there is a need to intensify effort on malaria treatment, control and prevention in these areas.