Prevalence of malaria and associated risk factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care at Kawempe National Refferal Hospital

Abstract

Malaria is a serious life threatening disease spread by the bite of infected female anopheles’ mosquito. The mosquito transmits the protozoan parasites of genus Plasmodium. It contains four species important to humans namely P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale and P. malariae. Plasmodium falciparum is the most important of the important of the four species of malaria. Malaria in pregnancy is of a major public health concern because pregnant women are three times more likely to suffer from malaria infection than non-pregnant women. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of malaria among pregnant women attending antenatal care at Kawempe National Referral Hospital and was a crossectional study and mRDT and microscopy were used for diagnosis. A total of 185 pregnant mothers were recruited for the study where 85.9% tested negative for malaria while 14.1% tested positive for malaria based on mRDT and microscopy. The women ranged from different ages, 5.4% were below 19 years, 67% of women were between 20-29, 24.9% were between 30-39 and 2.7 were above 40 years. Participant who had obtained primary education were 2.7%, secondary were 54.6% and tertiary education were 42.7% (p = 0.001). Pregnant mothers who lived in swampy location were more likely to get malaria than those that lived far from swampy locations (p < 0.001) as 54% of pregnant mothers lived in swampy areas while 45.4% lived in non-swampy areas. Basing on data analyzed on risk factors several variables showed significant associations with malaria cases in pregnancy which included level of education, use of mosquito nets and geographical location. Measures of malaria awareness programs, encouraging use of nets, antenatal visit and IPTp are some of recommended measures.