Malaria Morbidity and Mortality among Nomadic Fulani Children of Northeastern Nigeria

Abstract

Malaria is a deadly disease which is widely spread in the tropical regions of the world. This study was conducted to investigate malaria morbidity and mortality in under-five nomadic Fulani children.Morbidity and mortality were assessed through film microscopy, interviews, questionnaires and verbal autopsy. Results showed that Hot body (99.6%) was the major malaria morbidity in under-five children cited by the mothers. However, there was no association (X², p>0.05) with age, clan and parity. Almost half of the population had two episodes of fever in a year. This was significantly different (p<0.05) by age, sex and clan. About 98.5% of hot-body was observed in malaria infected individuals and was significantly. Mortality of under-five children was 113 per 1000 life births. Most (31.6%) mortality occurred between the age group 12-24 months.Males had higher rates of mortality (52.6%) as compared to their females' counterpart (47.4%). Mortality were higher (55.3%) in Kitaku clan than in other clans of the nomadic Fulani population. Children who were sick between 4-5 days died higher (48.7%) as compared to other sick days.it was shown that 92.1% attributed the causes of mortality to malaria related illness, while 7.9% to other causes.

Keywords: Malaria, Morbidity, Mortality, nomadic Fulani and film microscopy

Nigerian Journal of Parasitology, Vol. 33 [2] September 2012, pp. 149-155