Prevalence of Malaria Parasitaemia in Febrile Infants in Lagos Metropolis

Abstract

Malaria is a common cause of febrile illness in infants in Nigeria. However, it is not always that this is demonstrated with malaria parasites in blood film as most times diagnosis is mainly clinical. This prospective study was carried out to assess the prevalence of malaria parasitaemia in febrile infants. Three hundred and twenty two infants with a history of fever or fever at presentation, aged between one day and twelve months were consecutively enrolled. An overall malaria parasite prevalence rate of 55.2% was obtained in the study with P. falciparum constituting 98.3% of the plasmodium species causing malaria fever while P. malariae made up only 0.56% of the plasmodial infections. Mixed infections with both P. falciparum and P. malariae constituted the remaining 1.1%. There was no correlation between fever and parasitaemia. The implication of this for the management of febrile illness in infancy is discussed.

Key words: Febrile infants, malaria parasites, prevalence, Lagos metropolis.