ISSN: 2576-7771
Authors: Valentine UN*, Ndidi OC, Ndubuisi NO and Ugbo EN
Malaria in pregnancy poses a serious public health issues especially in developing countries. This study was to determine the Prevalence and risk factors of Malaria among Pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in Aboh Mbaise General Hospital. A total of 284 pregnant women participated in this study. A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to obtain some socio-demographic characteristics of patients. Thick and thin films were made from blood collected from each pregnant woman. The films were stained using the gold standard staining technique, Giemsa staining for detecting malaria parasites in blood. Data generated was analyzed using SPSS 23.0 statistical package. A p-value<0.05 was considered significant. The prevalence of malaria parasite among the pregnant women in Aboh Mbaise was 70.8%. Plasmodium falciparum was the only specie of malaria parasite found in this study. The age group 15 – 25 years, illiterates, unemployed and single patients had the highest prevalence of malaria positive (MP) patients of 81(28.5%), 80(28.2%), 140(49.3%) and 53(18.7%) respectively. Primigravidae had the highest frequency of MP patients of 109(38.4%) followed by multigravidae 92(32.4%) but there was no statistical significance (p>0.05). Malaria prevalence followed the trend of 1st trimester 80(28.2%) to 2nd trimester 66(23.2%) to 3rd trimester 45(15.8%) in that order but the differences were not statistically significant (p>0.05). The lowest frequency occurred in the month of February 9(3.2%) while the highest frequency occurred in the month of July 62(21.8%) but the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Patients who had bushes around their compound, and who didn’t use mosquito bed net (MBN) and insecticide treated nets (ITNs); those patients surrounded by mosquito breeding sites and who didn’t use Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPT) were significantly associated with malaria parasite infection (p< 0.05). The prevalence of malaria parasite among the pregnant women in was 70.8%. Lack of education and employment; and risk factors like non-compliance to use of ITNs/MBN; and non-usage of IPT during pregnancy, presence of mosquito breeding sites and bushes around the premises of the study participants were risk factors contributing to prevalence of malaria among pregnant women in Aboh Mbaise General Hospital in Imo State.
Keywords: Malaria; Multigravidae; Plasmodium Falciparum; Primigravidae; Pregnant Women; Prevalence; Risk Factors
