Prevalence of Malaria Parasitaemia in Umuchieze and Uturu Communities of Abia State, Nigeria

Malaria intensity in rural areas of Nigeria is of public health significance. In this study, the prevalence of malaria parasitaemia in Umuchieze and Uturu rural communities of Abia State, Southeast Nigeria were investigated in order to provide epidemiological data on malaria in the study communities for effective management programme. A total of 620 individuals (310 in each community) were examined for malaria parasites using standard methods. The results showed that a total of 455 (73.39%) among the studied individuals were infected. Infection rates in Umuchieze and Uturu were 72.58 and 74.19%, respectively but the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Also, the infection rates recorded for males (73.87%) and females (72.90%) in both communities did not differ statistically (p>0.05). Members of the age cohorts 11-20 years recorded the highest rate of infection, 82.61% and 88.24 in Umuchieze and Uturu, respectively. The highest rate of prevalence of malaria parasitaemia was identified among farmers in Umuchieze (85.60%) while in Uturu it was identified among students (81.33%). Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae were found among the positive cases in both study areas with Plasmodium falciparum being the highest with infection rate of 52.26% in Umuchieze and 53.55% in Uturu. Overall, the infection rate of Plasmodium species in both study communities is 72.09, 19.56 and 8.35% for P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. malariae, respectively. The results showed that Umuchieze and Uturu Communities were endemic for malaria.