IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i2p814-d482836.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevalence of Asymptomatic Malaria Infections in Seemingly Healthy Children, the Rural Dzanga Sangha Region, Central African Republic

Author

Listed:
  • Krzysztof Korzeniewski

    (Department of Epidemiology and Tropical Medicine, Military Institute of Medicine, 128 Szaserów St., 04-141 Warsaw, Poland
    Department of Occupational, Metabolic and Internal Diseases, Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 9B Powstania Styczniowego St., 81-519 Gdynia, Poland)

  • Emilia Bylicka-Szczepanowska

    (4th Department of Infectious Diseases, Provincial Hospital for Infectious Diseases, 37 Wolska St., 01-201 Warsaw, Poland)

  • Anna Lass

    (Department of Tropical Parasitology, Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 9B Powstania Styczniowego St., 81-519 Gdynia, Poland)

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization 94% of global malaria cases and 94% of global malaria deaths have been reported from Africa. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the exact prevalence of disease in some African countries due to a large number of asymptomatic cases. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of malaria infections in seemingly healthy children living in the Central African Republic (CAR). CareStart TM Malaria HRP2 rapid diagnostic test (RDT) targeting Plasmodium falciparum was used to test a group of 500 asymptomatic children aged 1-15 years old (330 settled Bantu and 170 semi-nomadic BaAka Pygmies) inhabiting the villages in the Dzanga Sangha region (south-west CAR) in March 2020. In total, 32.4% of asymptomatic Bantu and 40.6% of asymptomatic Pygmy children had a positive result of malaria RDT. Our findings allowed us to demonstrate the high prevalence of asymptomatic malaria infections in south-west CAR. RDTs seem to be a useful tool for the detection of Plasmodium falciparum in areas with limited possibilities of using other diagnostic methods, such as light microscopy and molecular biology.

Suggested Citation

  • Krzysztof Korzeniewski & Emilia Bylicka-Szczepanowska & Anna Lass, 2021. "Prevalence of Asymptomatic Malaria Infections in Seemingly Healthy Children, the Rural Dzanga Sangha Region, Central African Republic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:2:p:814-:d:482836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/814/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/814/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julius Ssempiira & Betty Nambuusi & John Kissa & Bosco Agaba & Fredrick Makumbi & Simon Kasasa & Penelope Vounatsou, 2017. "Geostatistical modelling of malaria indicator survey data to assess the effects of interventions on the geographical distribution of malaria prevalence in children less than 5 years in Uganda," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emilia Bylicka-Szczepanowska & Krzysztof Korzeniewski, 2022. "Asymptomatic Malaria Infections in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience from the Central African Republic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-9, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Faustin Habyarimana & Shaun Ramroop, 2020. "Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Malaria among Children Aged Six Months to 14 Years Old in Rwanda: Evidence from 2017 Rwanda Malaria Indicator Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Samuel Manda & Ndamonaonghenda Haushona & Robert Bergquist, 2020. "A Scoping Review of Spatial Analysis Approaches Using Health Survey Data in Sub-Saharan Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-20, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:2:p:814-:d:482836. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.