Abstract:
Malaria is one of the most devastating diseases in the World and caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Plasmodium. The species of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are the two predominant malaria parasite species, distributed in Ethiopia and accounting for 60% and 40% of malaria cases, respectively. The disease remains one of the most important causes of human morbidity and mortality with enormous health, economic and development impact in the world, and in most African countries including Ethiopia. The complexity of the disease transmission and control process, expensiveness of the control program, resistance of the parasite to anti-malarial drugs and vectors to insecticides are some of the challenges. The study was designed to analyze ten years malaria prevalence, its association with climatic variables and determine the level of correlation between meteorological variables and malaria in Sibu Sire district, Western Ethiopia. Ten years malaria clinical and epidemiological data were collected from health facilities and climatic data of the study area were also collected from Ethiopian Meteorological Agency. The data were analyzed using SPSS software package version 16.0. Overall a total of 30,070 blood films were examined for malaria in Sire Health Center from 2004–2013, of this 6036 (20.07%) microscopically confirmed malaria cases were reported. In this study a fluctuating trend of malaria prevalence was observed and P. falciparum accounted for the majority of the cases (66.12%) f5ollowed by P. vivax (30.52%) and mixed infection (3.36%) . 53.6 and 46.4 of the malaria cases were males and females, respectively. The age group with 15-44 years was more affected, with prevalence rate of (48.1%). The infection rates in rural and urban setting were 69.3% and 30.7%, respectively. In addition higher monthly malaria cases were recorded in June. Regression analysis also revealed that minimum temperature, rainfall, and average relative humidity had significant association with malaria prevalence (P<0.001). In general, prevalence of malaria did show a fluctuate trend throughout the study period and become declined. Therefore, detailed ecological and epidemiological studies are needed to assess the true local risk. Moreover, the National Malaria Control Program(NMCP) and other stakeholders should create awareness through health education and to scale-up the coverage of Long-lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) and Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) for the prevention and control of malaria in the study area.
