Prevalence of Malaria from Blood Smears Examination: A Three-Year Retrospective Study from Nakfa Hospital, Eritrea

BackgroundMalaria afflicts more than 90 countries in the tropical and subtropical region in which more than half of cases are present in sub-Saharan, Africa. It is one of the major health issues in Eritrea in which about 3.6 million (71%) of Eritrean population live in areas conducive for high transmission of malaria. Studying its prevalence is necessary to implement effective control measures. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the three-year prevalence of malaria from peripheral blood smear examination. MethodsA retrospective study was conducted at Nakfa Hospital from September 2016 to August 2019. All demographic details of subjects and positive malaria cases data were collected from laboratory registration book. ResultsThe overall prevalence of smear positive malaria cases was 33.0% (1921 cases out of 5826). Males (58.19%) were more prone to have a positive malaria smear than females (41.8%). A higher prevalence of malaria was observed in the adult age group (35%) compared with children under 5 years old children (27%). The highest prevalence of malaria cases was found in the year 2016 in which correspond to 48.8%. A comparative incidence was also observed during the next year of 2017 with rate of 41% (1087 cases out of 2680) and decreased to low levels in recent couple of years. High slide positive rate was seen in summer (40%) and Autumn (39.52%) whereas Spring had the lowest frequency of cases (14.3%). Similarly, months of July (45%) and September (40.6%) had been noted to have the maximum number of cases. Plasmodium vivax constituted the most predominant malaria infections (78.06%), while markedly lower p. falciparum was also present (21.26 %). Almost around 70% of cases were reported from patients living in and at the peripheries of Nakfa town. ConclusionEritrea is one of the few countries which has made a profound progress on decreasing transmission of common communicable diseases. However, vigilant surveillance is required especially during malaria transmission peaks from July to October which also overlap with harvesting seasons in Eritrea. Therefore, health planners need to organize intensive health education to increase community awareness via promotion of information and communication.