[Epidemiology Of Cerebral Malaria At The University Huc Gabriel Toure Before And After The Implementation Of Seasonnal Malaria Chemoprevention In Bamako].

Aims: Malaria remains a health problem. The objective was to study cerebral malaria (CM) epidemiology before and after the implementation of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC).

Materials and methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study carried out from January 01, 2014 to December 31, 2018 in children aged 0 to 15 years hospitalized for CM at the paediatrics' department of CHU Gabriel Touré.

Results: We recorded 1336 cases of CM, 803 boys and 533 girls with a sex ratio of 1.5. CM accounted for 92.1% and 83.5% respectively two years before and three years after the SMC implementation (p = 0.013). The overall lethality was 9.2% varying according to the years of follow up (p = 0.001) The SMC led to decrease of CM frequency of 8.6%.

Conclusion: SMC could have an impact on the expression of severe malaria phenotypes, with an increase of frequency of CM and CM associated with pulmonary oedema, a decrease of the frequency of CM associated with severe anaemia. Prospective studies will enable to understand the increasing case lethality rate observed during SMC period.