Prevalence and Predictors of Asymptomatic Malaria Parasitemia among Pregnant Women in the Rural Surroundings of Arbaminch Town, South Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundIn Sub-Saharan African countries, including Ethiopia, malaria in pregnancy is a major public health threat which results in significant morbidities and mortalities among pregnant women and their fetuses. In malaria endemic areas, Plasmodium infections tend to remain asymptomatic yet causing significant problems like maternal anemia, low birth weight, premature births, and still birth. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and predictors of asymptomatic Plasmodium infection among pregnant women in the rural surroundings of Arba Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia.MethodsA community based cross-sectional study comprising multistage sampling was conducted between April and June, 2013. Socio-demographic data were collected by using a semi-structured questionnaire. Plasmodium infection was diagnosed by using Giemsa-stained blood smear microscopy and a rapid diagnostic test (SD BIOLINE Malaria Ag Pf/Pv POCT, standard diagnostics, inc., Korea).ResultsOf the total 341 pregnant women participated in this study, 9.1% (31/341) and 9.7% (33/341) were confirmed to be infected with Plasmodium species by microscopy and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), respectively. The geometric mean of parasite density was 2392 parasites per microliter (μl); 2275/ μl for P. falciparum and 2032/ μl for P. vivax. Parasitemia was more likely to occur in primigravidae (Adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 9.4, 95% confidence interval (CI): 4.3–60.5), secundigravidae (AOR: 6.3, 95% CI: 2.9–27.3), using insecticide treated bed net (ITN) sometimes (AOR: 3.2, 95% CI: 1.8- 57.9), not using ITN at all (AOR: 4.6, 95% CI: 1.4–14.4) compared to multigravidae and using ITN always, respectively.ConclusionAsymptomatic malaria in this study is low compared to other studies’ findings. Nevertheless, given the high risk of malaria during pregnancy, pregnant women essentially be screened for asymptomatic Plasmodium infection and be treated promptly via the antenatal care (ANC) services.

Asymptomatic malaria infection among pregnant women attending antenatal care in malaria endemic areas of North-Shoa, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

“…In the present study, the prevalence of asymptomatic Plasmodium infection among pregnant women was 5.7% and 3.4%by using Giemsa-stained blood smear microscopy and CareStart ™ HRP2/pLDH combo rapid malaria test, respectively. This prevalence was lower than the finding reported from the rural surroundings of Arbaminch town, South Ethiopia, which was 9.1% and 9.7% by microscopy and RDT, respectively among pregnant women [6]. This might be because the area of the present study is among the high malaria transmission areas in Ethiopia.…”

“…Sample size was calculated using asymptomatic malaria prevalence of 9.1% reported from a study conducted in the rural surroundings of Arbaminch Town [6]. The random error of 5% and confidence level of 95% were assumed in the sample size determination.…”

“…Malaria during pregnancy may cause a variety of adverse consequences including maternal anaemia, placental accumulation of parasites, low birth weight from prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation, congenital infection and infant mortality [5]. Asymptomatic infection with Plasmodium species is common in malaria endemic areas [6,7]. The prevalence of asymptomatic parasitaemia reaches over 90% in children, in highly endemic areas of Africa [8].…”

Spatial distribution of asymptomatic Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum infections in low, moderate and high endemic settings in Ethiopia

“…The current multi-site study allowed an assessment of factors in uencing the prevalence of infections as well as their detectability by microscopy-RDT. The prevalence of asymptomatic Plasmodium infections in the current study was in the same range as other reports from high [34,38] and moderate [27] transmission settings in Ethiopia and elsewhere [29,35,40,41].…”

“…For this study, 70.0% (231/330) of the students were successfully sampled. For the community surveys, we expected an overall prevalence of 6.8% asymptomatic Plasmodium infections based on previous observations [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] with a precision of 5%. Based on previous experience, a minimum of 75 samples for the school surveys and 114 for the community samples was targeted across the study sites [21].…”