Malaria Prevalence and Mosquito Vector Abundance in Uli Town, Ihiala Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

Malaria prevalence and mosquito vector abundance in Uli town in Ihiala Local Area of Anambra state, Nigeria, was studied between April and July 2010. Oral interviews were used to get personal data of participants. Blood film preparations and microscopy were used to detect malaria parasites in the blood. 178 participants made up of 111(62.45%) males and 67(37.6%) females from the ten villages of the town were involved in the study. Participants were aged between 0 – 70 years and were subdivided into 7 age groups of ten years intervals each, occupational and educational groups. Of the 178 participants examined, 126 (70.8%) were positive with malaria parasites. Species detected include P. falciparum (80.2%), P. malariae (13.6%), P. ovale (4.4%) and mixed infection of P. falciparum and P. malariae (1.6%). The age group 31-40 years had the highest malaria prevalence 42(85.71%) while 0-10 had the least 6(42.86%). The malaria prevalence in relation to age was significant (15.100, df=5; p<0.05). The males 82(73.9%) were slightly more affected than the females 45(65.7%), but not statistically significant (0.683, df-5; P>0.05). Malaria prevalence was significantly higher among those without formal education 7(77.7%) and least among those with tertiary education 5(35.7%; P<0.05). Malaria prevalence among different occupational groups showed no significant difference though farmers were slightly more infected than others (p>0.05). Of 484 mosquito larvae collected, the Anopheles gambiae larvae were 109(22.5%). Pyrethrum Knockdown Collection (PKC) of indoor biting and resting adult mosquitoes gave 272 mosquitoes in which A. gambiae yielded 170(62.5%). Correlation analysis showed that vector abundance was strongly and positively related to malaria in Uli town (r = 0.1321484).

Keywords: Malaria, Vector Abundance, Rainforest community.