llness pattern and the relationship between the prevalence of malaria and other infections in Niger Delta University

Abstract

The illness pattern and the relationship between malaria and other infections were examined in the present work – a base-line information prior to a meaningful healthcare policy formulation. A period of 5years (2007 – 2011) illness pattern was retrospectively obtained from the University Medical Centre, while questionnaires addressing the various health-related activities were administered to 500 volunteer subjects - students and staff of the institution. Biochemical parameters in the various disease conditions were determined using standard tests, while the means of frequencies of disease occurrence were compared using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Results of mean comparison showed that the mean of frequencies of malaria infection was significantly increasing (p 0.05). Malaria infection was the most prevalent illness with the highest frequency occurring around the month of April, accounting for 63.83 – 67.10% of the illnesses compared. This was followed by upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), peptic ulcer, and candidiasis, in that order. The relationship between the illness types showed that a positive correlation existed between malaria and typhoid, and malaria and URTI, (p<0.05). From the results of questionnaire analysis, 70.89% of the male students’ group admitted having a frequency of one to twelve attacks of malaria infection per annum with 43.67% of them who claimed to have suffered previous typhoid infections. As a result, 25.32% were absent from lectures for a period of 1- 30 days per annum. These results showed that malaria infection was on the increase and apart from the likelihood of impacting negatively on students’ performance, could represent a huge source of financial drain on a developing economy.