Aluku A¹, Bello SO^2,, Anazodo MC³, Aluku R¹, Joshua A⁴, Tanze DY¹, Kayode O⁵, Agbawu A¹, Odonye CE³, Lawal AA⁶, Hassan II³

Background: Malaria is an infectious disease caused by Plasmodium and transmitted by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. This study determined the knowledge of caregivers about malaria, prevalence of malaria and compares the results of testing for malaria using rapid diagnostic test (mRDT) and microscopy. Methods: A prospective study carried out among children < 15 years in Lafia Nigeria. Testing was done using the Histidine Rich Protein-2 RDT kit and blood film microscopy. Bivariate analysis was done. Significant p is < 0.05. Results: Mean age of this study population is 15.0 ± 4.6 years. The overall incidence of malaria using RDT was 45.4% while 16.5% was reported positive using microscopy. The positive RDT was highest among children aged 6 month to < 5 years. There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.0001) between malaria diagnoses by RDT compared with the microscopy which implies that there is difference between the number of positive cases by mRDT and numbers of positive cases by microscopy. Overall 40 (14.1) participants were positive to both mRDT and microscopy in this study. Conclusions: There is high incidence of malaria in this study as one out of two febrile children seen had malaria. Rapid Diagnostic Test is a more efficient diagnostic tool for malaria compared with the microscopy. We therefore recommend; more efforts to be directed to halting the rising trend of new cases of malaria and RDT should be deployed at all levels of healthcare in diagnosing all febrile illness and prompt treatment based on the National guidelines.

children, febrile, malaria, microscopy, rapid diagnostic test