Prevalence of malaria infection among under-fives and the associated factors in Muleba district-Kagera region Tanzania.

Abstract

Background: In Tanzania malaria is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in children under 5 years. The disease ranks number one in both outpatient and inpatient statistics. The socio-economic impact of malaria is so high that it contributes highly to poverty and underdevelopment. Malaria control and elimination interventions have been scaled up and intensified as the current efforts to attain World Health Assembly, Roll Back Malaria, and Millennium development targets, to reduce and interrupt disease transmission. The major malaria intervention tools now include: The use of long-lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN), Artemisinin-based Combination therapy (ACT), Indoor Residual Spraying of insecticide (IRS), and Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Pregnancy (IPT). Despite these interventions the prevalence remains high among the under five children hence this study. Objectives: This study aimed at examining the prevalence of malaria and the associated factors among the under-five year‘s children in Muleba District. Methodology: Descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out in Muleba district which is a malaria endemic area. Every head of the randomly selected household either female or male who were present at home at the time of data collection were interviewed in Kiswahili language using a pre-tested structured questionnaire - on ITNs ownership, actual usage among those who own ITNs, IRS coverage, socio-demographic factors and malaria parasites in the under-five population were ascertained using a Malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT). Results: A total of 391 under-fives aged between 1-60 month (mean age =22.8 month) were recruited and ascertained for parasitemia using the mRDT. The overall prevalence of malaria was 26.3%. Out of the screened children 79.5% reported to sleep under the ITNs the previous night. The coverage of IRs was observed to be 94%.