Abstract:
Background: Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in early childhood, but its consequences during the school-age years are less widely acknowledged. Objectives: To determine the prevalence, associated factors and effects of malaria infection in school children in Sirikwa Sub-location, Uasin Gishu District Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study done in Sirikwa Sub-location, 35km north of Eldoret in Uasin Gishu District between October 2005 and March 2006
involving 251 school children. The participants were selected using systematic sampling
from the 4 primary and 4 nursery schools in the study area. A questionnaire was administered and the following variables were measured: malariornetric survey (parasite rate, spleen rate, haemoglobin level, and temperature), identification of AnopheLes mosquito breeding sites and calculation distance (s) to nearest household using Geographic Positioning Systems,(GPS). Data was entered into SPSS software version 10.0 and analyzed quantitatively using descriptive, Chi-square, regression and ANaYA at 0.05 level of statistical significance with parasitaernia
as the dependent variable. Results: The overall malaria parasite prevalence was 15.5%, with a higher prevalence of 20.4% among participants living <500m from mosquito breeding sites and prevalence of 9.2% among those living >500m, (X 2 = 9.321, P = 0.025). Distance from anopheline
mosquito breeding site was the strongest predictor of parasitaernia (p=0.005) compared to
age (p=0.022), fever (p=0.043) IRS (p=0.048) and ITN (p 0.084). Children living less than 500m from the nearest vector-breeding site had higher previous malaria attacks. school absenteeism, malaria prevalence rate, spleen rate, gametocyte rate and anaemia. Children less than 9 years had higher rate of malaria prevalence, spleen and anemia than children over 9 years. Conclusion:
Malaria transmission in the study area is heterogeneous over a small geographic area. School children have a high burden of malaria and schools should be incorporated in malaria control strategies. Keywords: Prevalence, Associated factors, Effects, Malaria, School children. Uasin
Gishu, Kenya.
