Malaria prevention practices among mothers delivering in an urban hospital in southwest Nigeria.
OBJECTIVE
The pregnant woman is more prone to malaria than her non-pregnant counterpart with grave consequences for both mother and baby. This study aims at determining the malaria prevention practices among pregnant women in an area hyper-endemic for malaria.


METHODS
For the study 983 parturient mothers were enrolled in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria. Information was collected on sociodemographic characteristics, use of malaria chemoprophylaxis, use of anti-vector measures, and malaria parasitaemia.


RESULTS
Most mothers [956/972 (98.4%)] reported the use of anti-vector measures for malaria prevention. These include, window screens (78.9%), insecticides spray (69.9%), mosquito coils (25.3%), untreated bednets (2.5%), and insecticide-treated nets (1.1%). Most mothers used anti-vector measures either singly or in combination. About 86% (840/972) of the mothers used drugs for chemoprophylaxis. Thirteen (1.3%) mothers used chemoprophylaxis alone (CP), 135 (13.9%) used anti-vector measures alone (AV) while 820 (84.4%) used chemoprophylaxis plus anti-vector (CPAV). Weekly dose of pyrimethamine [214 (25%)] and intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine [598 (71.2%)] were the widely used chemoprophylactic drugs. The prevalence of patent parasitaemia at delivery was 7.7% (1/13), 12.1% (99/820) and 16.3% (22/135) among CP, CPAV and AV groups respectively. Geometric mean parasite densities among the respective groups were 7840/microl, 1228/microl and 8936/microl.


CONCLUSIONS
Window screens and insecticide sprays were widely used for malaria prevention while the use of ITN was very low among enrolled mothers. There is a need to pay concerted efforts to improve ITN usage rate in Nigeria.
Yusuf
O B
OB
Department of Epidemiology, Medical Statistics & Environmental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Dada-Adegbola
H O
HO
Ajayi
I O
IO
Falade
C O
CO
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D009032:Mosquito Control; D009549:Nigeria / Q000453:epidemiology; D018512:Parasitemia / Q000453:epidemiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D015597:Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*