STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF MALARIA PREVALENCE AMONGPREGNANT WOMEN IN AKWA IBOM

Abstract

Malaria being a serious infectious disease has been a public health challenge in Nigeria, despite decades of effort to eliminate or control it, malaria has continue to thrive in the country accounting for mortality. This has in decades subjected pregnant women to the risk of anemia, low birth weight, premature delivery and perinatal mortality hence the need for this research ‘Statistical Analysis of Malaria Prevalence among Pregnant Women in Akwa Ibom’ to statistically analyze prevalence of malaria among pregnant women in Akwa Ibom State and assess the causes with preventive practice (use of ITN). The study adopted Experimental Research Design to obtain blood specimen of 300 pregnant women in the clinical Laboratory for test. The collected data were analyzed descriptively. Furthermore chi square test was performed to check relationship between social demographic factor such as Educational Level and the prevalence/cases of Malaria also to check the relationship between the use of ITN and the cases of Malaria. The Experimental Results on severity of Malaria revealed Malaria one plus (+) at mire stage is of 30% cases with the mean of 1.2 which is slightly lower to the mean of Malaria two plus (+ +) at more severe stage with mean of 1.3 and 32% of cases. It also revealed the mean of the most severe stage of Malaria (+ + +) to be 0.3 with 7% of cases, this implies out of every 30 pregnant women tested of Malaria at least two (2) cases will be very severe with Malaria three plus (+ + +). While the non significant cases are 31% with 1.2 mean. The analysis also revealed that the prevalence/cases of Malaria among pregnant women is dominant with mean of 1.4 and percentage of 69%, making more than 6 pregnant women out of every 10 pregnant women are found to be living with malaria where 92 pregnant women accounting for 31% are without malaria. Also, the analysis revealed a decrease in the cases of Malaria with higher educational level attained. It also revealed that approximately more than 98% of pregnant women are aware of Malaria among the analyzed samples less than 1.4% indicated not aware. Hence it can be concluded that up to 99 pregnant women out of 100 pregnant women in Akwa Ibom State are aware of Malaria. It also revealed that Mosquito causes more than half of the Malaria cases among Pregnant women in Akwa Ibom State. Malaria cases increased from regular uses of ITN of 38% to 92% non-users of ITN, the difference is 54% increment. Also, the line graph of the non cases of Malaria with usage of ITN showed decrement with non usage of ITN. Hence it can be concluded that the use of ITN is a good measure to reduce the prevalence/cases of Malaria and to increase the non prevalence/cases each by 54% among pregnant women in Akwa Ibom. The hypothesis, p = 0.0012 < 0.05 with χ²-value of 10.56 revealed statistically significant association between social Demographic factor and cases of Malaria among pregnant women, therefore we reject H0. Also since p = 0.0027 < 0.05 with χ²-value of 9.03 revealed statistically significant association between the use of ITN and malaria infection/cases among pregnant women in Akwa Ibom State, hence we reject H0. Women who used ITNs were significantly less likely to contract malaria