THE STATUS OF MALARIA PREVALENCE AMONG PATIENTS VISITING MIDAKEGN HEALTH CENTER, WEST SHEWA ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Malaria is one of the major public health problems in many tropical and subtropical developing countries including Ethiopia. The objective of this study was to assess the status of malaria prevalence among patients visiting Midakegn Health Center, West Shewa Zone, Oromia Regional State, A cross sectional study was carried out from December 2018-March 2019. Health records of malaria for the last five years (2014 -2018) were obtained from Midakegn Health record Offices. A systematic random sampling technique was carried to select representative study participants (422 patients out of the total eligible study participants). A structured and pretested questionnaires and blood smear examinations were used for data collection from 422 people. All data were analyzed using SPSS versio20. The overall prevalence of malaria was 13.3 % .Of these, the prevalence of P. falciparum was (58.9%) and the prevalence of P. vivax was (41.1. The result indicated that there are statistically significant associations (P=0.001) between the prevalence of Plasmodium parasite infection with different factors including, occupation (P =0.003), health education (P=0.000), Malaria control ways (P=0.000), Number of bed net exist (P=0.000), whereas age group (P =0.418), educational level (P =0.006), marital status (P =0.177), didn’t show significant associations. Hence, the use of personal protection, such as the use of impregnated bed nets should be introduced to the community through education, the community must wipe out or destroy the breeding site of mosquito, regular health education must be provided to raise individual and community awareness about the mode of malaria transmission, prevention and control, It also may result in resurgence of drug resistant malaria.. Further Ecological and epidemiological studies are still needed to assess the true local risk factors.