Browsing by Author "Hailu, Kahsu"

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    Trends and Current Status of Malaria in Berahle Health Center, Afar Region, Northeast Ethiopia
    (Addis Ababa University, 2017-09) Hailu, Kahsu; Mamo, Hassen (PhD)
    The global health burden of malaria has been substantially reduced recently. Encouraged by this, many endemic countries set a plan of eliminating or at least entering a preelimination phase and some even declared malaria free. Ethiopia planned to eliminate the disease in selected low-transmission settings by 2020 and many other endemic areas are set to be in a pre-elimination phase soon. For this to be achieved regular surveillance of malaria status across the country is necessary. The objective of this study was part of this nationwide effort. As such, the study assessed malaria status in Berahle Health Center in northern Afar, northeast Ethiopia where malaria is endemic. Patients visiting the Health Center between September 2016 and January 2017 and suspected of malaria were successively recruited. Blood samples were drawn and examined following standard procedures. Reported malaria cases in the past five years (2012-2016) were also extracted from the Health Center record system. Out of 1600 febrile patients tested between September 2016 and January 2017 prospectively, 310(19.4%) were malaria slidepositive. Of this 202(65.2%) were attributed to Plasmodium falciparum and 108(34.8%) to P. vivax. The retrospective data revealed 8868(28.8%) malaria slide-positive cases in the past-five years with 88.4% P. falciparum and 11.6% P. vivax cases. Malaria slidpositivity was not significantly associated with age. Although a declining trend was noticed the number of confirmed malaria cases was considerable. Incrimination of local risk-factors is in urgent need to further scale-up targeted control interventions to put the study area on track to at least a pre-elimination phase. Keywords: Malaria, Plasmodium, Berahle, retrospective, prospective