Prevalence of malaria parasite infection among pregnant women in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria. – O. A. Adefioye, O. A. Adeyeba, W. O. Hassan, and O. A. Oyeniran
ABSTRACT
The study to determine the prevalence of malaria parasites infection among pregnant women in Osogbo was carried out in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital between April – June, 2004. Both thick and thin films were made and stained using parasitological standard procedures. Questionnaires were also distributed to ascertain their state of health before recruiting them into the study. Overall 180 (72%) of the 250 pregnant women investigated were found to have malaria infections in which the age group 36 –39 years had the highest frequency rate of 88.2% with mean parasite density of 800 /dl and the difference between the pregnant women and age groups were statistically significant (P< 0.05). Illiterates had the highest mean parasite density of 740 /dl with 54.4% prevalence rate. The use of drug was also looked into, in which local herbs had 100% sensitive to Plasmodium falciparum than orthodox curative drug.