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Background: Despite reports on the decline of malaria prevalence in several parts of the world, malaria still remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality particularly in sub Saharan Africa. Epidemiology of malaria has declined as a result of scaling up of different interventions programs. Therefore, a site prepared for malaria vaccine trials should focus on the baseline epidemiological information.
Methods: A total of 640 participants were enrolled in a cross sectional survey on malaria epidemiology at Bondo village in north-eastern Tanzania. Patients attending Bondo health facility for health care between November 2010 to February 2011 and the community living at Bondo village were involved in this study. Study participants were obtained by convenient sampling.
Results: About 40.7% of the respondents had general knowledge on research, 97.8% were aware of malaria symptoms, almost all participants (99.4%) understood mode of malaria transmission.
Prevalence of malaria parasites detected by microscopy was 7.3%. In our study area entomological inoculation rate (EIR) of 39 infectious bites per person per year was obtained. The results of seroprevalence increased significantly by age for both MSP-119 (c2=79.3, p<0.0001) and AMA-1 (c2=60, p<0.0001). In this study the highest seroprevalence in adults was 87.3% and 96.2% for MSP-119 and AMA-1, respectively. Generally, seroprevalence was higher for AMA-1 (85%) than for MSP-119 (70%) c2= 26.3, p<0.001
Conclusion: Majority of the respondents had general knowledge on malaria. Bondo village may be suitable for future malaria vaccine trials with regards to different range of age groups as the candidates for malaria vaccine trials. The area had moderate to high EIR despite of low parasites prevalence detected microscopically. We recommend further studies by the use of molecular techniques to determine parasite prevalence which could have been missed by the techniques used in this study. |
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