PREVALENCE OF MALARIA AT MMC AND AMC HOSPITALS IN DISTRICT MARDAN KHYBERPUKHTUNKHAWA

Abstract

An important public health challenge is the malarial infection in the district Mardan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Malaria is highly endemic and the transmission rate is high in the people of district Mardan. The current study's main objective is to explore and identify the frequency of malarial species infection in district Mardan (MMC AND AMC hospitals). This study began in June 2023 and ran through September 2023 and randomly selected 5081 participants for this study by attending two separate laboratories twice a week. Blood films, both thick and thin, were made after the blood samples were obtained, for microscopy and rapid diagnostic testing for both genders (male and female) of different ages who live and work in urban and rural regions. According to the results, the positivity rate of malarial infection is high 7.5%, and found malaria ratio in rural regions is (55%) as compared to urban areas (44%) where males (53.0%) and females (46.9%) are affected by malaria. Apart from that, the high frequency of malaria recorded percentage was among individuals aged 15 and older (45%), while the 0-4 age group had the lowest proportion (20%). Plasmodium vivax was found to be high with the highest endemicity rate of (82.5%) followed by Plasmodium Falciparum (17.2%) and found the highest ratio in September (9.0%). Thus, the prevalence of malarial disease still presents a serious problem. Individuals in the community need to take personal preventive measures to protect themselves, such as using insecticide-treated bed nets, using topical insect repellent, and securing residential areas.

Keywords: Malaria, Mardan, Plasmodium species, Prevalence.