Prevalence of malaria in pre and post covid-19 era in district Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: There are large populations of people who are affected by malaria. In 2004, it has been reported that there were 350–500 million cases of the illness worldwide. More than two billion people, or more than 40% of the world's population, are at risk of developing malaria, and there are an estimated 1.1-1.3 million deaths from malaria globally each year, according to the WHO report. The objectives of the current study is to find out the prevalence of malaria in age and gender wise as well as determined the pre and post effect of covid-19 on malaria. Method: A Cross-Sectional Study was designed by Bala Ghari hospital, Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A total number of 1146 patients’ data were taken from the laboratory sections of Bala Ghari hospital, Mardan from 2017 till 2021. Out of 1146 samples, 657(57.32%) were males, while 350 (30.54%) were females and 139 (12.12%) were transgender. The ethical approval was obtained from The University of Haripur, Research and Ethic committee (approval number: MLT/0018). Variables for data were calculated by percentages and ratios. Results: The results showed that the prevalence of malaria was minimum in group A (3-10 years of age), which was 0.17 % of the total collected samples. While the prevalence of malaria was maximum, 23.56 % of the collected samples in group C (18-25 year of age). Furthermore, our results indicate that the prevalence of malaria in the pre-covid-19 era is 39.3 %,   while in the post-covid-19 era is 41.9 %. The prevalence of malaria increased by 2.6 % in the post-covid-19 era. Conclusion: Major finding of our study is that malarial infection is higher in the post-covid-19 era as compared to the pre-covid-19 era because of the lack of access to healthcare facilities.