TY - JOUR
T1 - Use of antimalarial in the management of fever during a community survey in the kintampo districts of Ghana
AU - Abokyi, Livesy Naafoe
AU - Asante, Kwaku Poku
AU - Mahama, Emmanuel
AU - Gyaase, Stephaney
AU - Sulemana, Abubakari
AU - Kwarteng, Anthony
AU - Ayaam, Jennifer
AU - Dosoo, David
AU - Adu-Gyasi, Dennis
AU - Etego, Seeba Amenga
AU - Ogutu, Bernhards
AU - Akweongo, Patricia
AU - Owusu-Agyei, Seth
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Abokyi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2015/11/1
Y1 - 2015/11/1
N2 - Background: Epidemiology of malaria and related fevers in most parts of Africa is changing due to scale up of interventions such as appropriate use of ACTs in the effort towards sustained control and eventual elimination of malaria. The use of ACTs in the management of malaria-associated fever was evaluated in the Kintampo districts of Ghana. Methods: Household survey was conducted between October 2009 and February, 2011. A random selection of 370 households was generated from 25,000 households existing within the Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems in Kintampo, Ghana at the time. All household members present at the time of survey in the eligible households were interviewed based on a two weeks reported fever recall and the use of antimalarial for the management of fever. A finger-prick blood sample was also obtained from each member of the household present and later examined for malaria parasites using microscopy. Descriptive analysis was performed, with univariate and multivariate analysis used to identify predictors of fever and malaria parasitemia. Results: A total of 1436 individuals were interviewed from 370 households. Overall, fever prevalence was 23.8% (341/1436) and was 38.8% (77/198) in children < 5 years, 21.3% (264/1238) in older children plus adults. Participants who sought treatment for fever were 84% (285/341) with 47.7%(136/285) using any anti-malarial. Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy use was in 69.1% (94/136) of cases while 30.9% used mono-therapies. Malaria parasitaemia rate was 28.2% (397/1407). Conclusion: The study reports high community fever prevalence, frequent use of antimalarials for fever treatment and relatively high use of mono-therapies especially in children < 5 years in an area with high malaria parasite prevalence in Ghana.
AB - Background: Epidemiology of malaria and related fevers in most parts of Africa is changing due to scale up of interventions such as appropriate use of ACTs in the effort towards sustained control and eventual elimination of malaria. The use of ACTs in the management of malaria-associated fever was evaluated in the Kintampo districts of Ghana. Methods: Household survey was conducted between October 2009 and February, 2011. A random selection of 370 households was generated from 25,000 households existing within the Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems in Kintampo, Ghana at the time. All household members present at the time of survey in the eligible households were interviewed based on a two weeks reported fever recall and the use of antimalarial for the management of fever. A finger-prick blood sample was also obtained from each member of the household present and later examined for malaria parasites using microscopy. Descriptive analysis was performed, with univariate and multivariate analysis used to identify predictors of fever and malaria parasitemia. Results: A total of 1436 individuals were interviewed from 370 households. Overall, fever prevalence was 23.8% (341/1436) and was 38.8% (77/198) in children < 5 years, 21.3% (264/1238) in older children plus adults. Participants who sought treatment for fever were 84% (285/341) with 47.7%(136/285) using any anti-malarial. Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy use was in 69.1% (94/136) of cases while 30.9% used mono-therapies. Malaria parasitaemia rate was 28.2% (397/1407). Conclusion: The study reports high community fever prevalence, frequent use of antimalarials for fever treatment and relatively high use of mono-therapies especially in children < 5 years in an area with high malaria parasite prevalence in Ghana.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84957571029&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0142106
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0142106
M3 - Article
C2 - 26580076
AN - SCOPUS:84957571029
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 10
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 11
M1 - e0142106
ER -