Abstract:
Recently malaria associated deaths and illness are decreasing in most malaria endemic areas of the world. The current study was undertaken to assess the status of malaria prevalence in one of malaria endemic areas of Ethiopia. Accordingly, a ten years (2007 to 2016) malaria cases report was obtained from Asendabo health center, Jimma zone, Southwest Ethiopia. In addition data on awareness of the community towards the disease transmission and prevention strategies were collected using questionnaire. Data of 65,802 febrile patients diagnosed and treated in the health center were included in the study. About 13, 595 of them were found malaria positive, showing an aggregate ten years malaria prevalence of 20.68% (95% CI, 20.37 to 20.99) was obtained. A year with highest prevalence (34.86) was 2010, while the lowest was 2015/16 (0.62%). The two Plasmodium species were accountable for malaria infections in the study area. About 52.13% (n=7087) of malaria cases were infected with Plasmodium falciparum, 44.2% were due to P. vivax and the remaining 7.7% were due to mixed (P. falciparum and P. vivax) infection. Dry season (from September to February)) was found malaria peak season in the study area. Number of malaria diagnosed patients in the area (46.5%, n=6336) were significantly higher (P=0.023) than other seasons. Demographic characteristics of the participants such as age, sex (being male) and educational status showed positive association with infection with malaria at least once in life time. The three major malaria prevention and control strategies such as utilization of bed net (with a coverage of 92.96%, 357/384), indoor residual spraying (mainly by government) and combination therapy (provided by health professionals at health facilities and health extension workers) widely undertaking in the study area. Thus, the current study is supporting evidence for the fact that the declining pattern of malaria prevalence in one of malaria endemic areas Ethiopia.
