抄録
Malaria diagnosis is a common challenge in developing countries with limited diagnostic services. The common febrile illnesses were assessed from 280 malaria suspected patients and each case was subjected to clinical and laboratory examination of malaria, relapsing fever, typhoid fever, typhus and brucellosis. Data was entered and analyzed using Epi-info version 3.1 software. Malaria accounted for 17 % (CI: 12.6% to 21.4%) of febrile illnesses. The remaining was associated with typhoid fever (18.5%; CI: 13.95% to 23.05%), typhus (17.8%; CI: 13.32% to 22.28%), brucellosis (1%; CI:-0.17% to 2.17%); relapsing fever (2%; CI: 0.36% to 3.64%) and unknown fever cause (44%). About 7% Coinfections were recorded, of which 2% treated as monoinfection. About 1.4 % non malarial patients received antimalarial treatment. Sensitivity and specificity of Carestart Pf/pan RDTs compared to microscopy were 100% and 91%, respectively with positive and negative predictive values of 94% and 100%, respectively. The PPV of each malaria symptoms compared to microscopy were very low than the combined symptoms: fever 17%, sweating 30%, headache 18%, general body ache 22% and loss of appetite 21%. The study findings revealed high proportion of non malarial illness clinically categorized as malaria cases. Relying on parasite based diagnosis is recommended to manage malarial and non malarial cases.
