跳至主要内容

Prevalence, Clinical Features and Outcome of Neonatal Malaria in Two Major Hospitals in Jos, North-Central Nigeria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease affecting humans and other animals caused by parasitic protozoans belonging to the Plasmodium type. It is usually found in tropical and subtropical climates where the parasites that cause it live and remains a major health problem. Due to the protective barrier of the placenta, transfer of maternal antibodies and the protective effect of foetal haemoglobin (HbF), malaria was thought to be rare in neonates. However, recent studies report increasing prevalence in neonates. In this paper, the authors aimed to assess the prevalence, clinical features and outcome of malaria in neonates admitted into two tertiary hospitals in Jos, Plateau State.

The study was carried out in Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) and Bingham University Teaching Hospital (BhUTH). It had a prospective hospital based longitudinal descriptive study design and was carried out between 2nd January and 4th July, 2013. All consecutive neonates (aged between 0 and 28 days old) admitted into the selected hospitals were recruited within 24 hours of admission if they met the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Giemsa stained blood films of the neonates were examined by trained microscopists. Neonates with malaria had presenting clinical features recorded and treated with amodiaquine (1st line) and quinine (2nd line). Clinical features and parasitaemia were monitored for 14 days for outcome. Of the 301 neonates enrolled, 16 had malaria parasitaemia giving a prevalence of 5.3%. Congenital malaria accounted for 87.5% of cases of neonatal malaria. Plasmodium falciparum mono-infection was responsible for all the cases of malaria. ITN use in pregnancy offered some protection against neonatal malaria (CI=0.2 - 0.7). The median parasite density was 255 (72, 385) parasites/μl. Fever was significantly present in 10 (66.7%) of the cases (p=0.03). Fifteen of the 16 neonates had clinical and parasitological cure on treatment with amodiaquine. One treatment failure had cure after retreatment with quinine. There was no mortality in all 16 neonates treated for malaria.

In conclusion, malaria is not rare in neonates on admission in Jos, Nigeria. And the Neonatal malaria was characterized by low parasite density and as a mild disease, with fever as the commonest clinical feature. Amodiaquine has provided effective treatment of malaria in neonates in Jos.

Article by Udochukwu M. Diala, et al, from Nigeria.

Full access: http://mrw.so/2fSLOK
Image by Luke Pearson, from Flickr-cc.



评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Electron Spin and Proton Spin in the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Like Atomic Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52202#.VIj7tMnQrzE Author(s) Stanisław Olszewski * Affiliation(s) Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland . ABSTRACT The mechanical angular momentum and magnetic moment of the electron and proton spin have been calculated semiclassically with the aid of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. The spin effects of both kinds of the elementary particles can be expressed in terms of similar formulae. The quantization of the spin motion has been done on the basis of the old quantum theory. It gives a quantum number n = 1/2 as the index of the spin state acceptable for both the electron and proton ...
发表评论
阅读全文

Remarks on the Complexity of Signed k-Domination on Graphs

Read  full  paper  at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53574#.VMnXsCzQrzE Author(s)    Chuan-Min Lee 1 , Cheng-Chien Lo 1 , Rui-Xin Ye 2 , Xun Xu 2 , Xiao-Han Shi 2 , Jia-Ying Li 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, Ming Chuan University, The First American University in Asia, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Chinese Taipei . 2 Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China . ABSTRACT This paper is motivated by the concept of the signed k-domination problem and dedicated to the complexity of the problem on graphs. For any fixed nonnegative integer k, we show that the signed k-domination problem is NP-complete for doubly chordal graphs. For strongly chordal graphs and distance-hereditary graphs, we show that the signed k-domination problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also show that the problem is linear-time solvable for trees, interval graphs, and chord...
发表评论
阅读全文

A Review of Technical Requirements for High Penetration of Wind Power Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52361#.VJN8VcCAM4 Author(s)    Yuan-Kang Wu 1 , Tung-Ching Lee 2 , Ting-Yen Hsieh 2 , Wei-Min Lin 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chung-Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan . 2 Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan . ABSTRACT Renewable portfolio targets have been established in many regions around the world. Regional targets such as 20% renewable energy by year 2020 are not uncommon. As the levels of wind power penetration increase, there are many power system impacts. This work investigated possible challenges and technic...
发表评论
阅读全文