Background- Malaria is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality particularly in sub-Saharan Africa including Ethiopia. Approximately, 68% of its population is at a risk of malaria infection and nearly three-fourth of the Ethiopia landmass is considered as malarious. Most of the malaria related researches are being conducted in the rural areas; however, urban malaria should be also targeted without which malaria elimination is impossible. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of malaria and its associated risk factors in Batu town, Oromia Regional state, Ethiopia.
Methods – Finger pricked blood samples were collected from 356 febrile individuals visiting health facilities in Batu town from April to July, 2018 supplemented with questionnaire survey to assess socio-demographic and risk factors associated with malaria infection.
Results – In the current study an overall prevalence of 17.13% (61/356) malaria infection was observed of which 50.8% (31/61) were positive for P. vivax, 45.95% (28/61) were positive for P. falciparum and 3.3% (2/61) were mixed infections of P. falciparum and P. vivax. Males (32 (9%)) were more infected with malaria than females (29 (8.2%)). Sex had no statistical significance association with malaria (χ2 = 2.026, P = 0.155). Logistic regression analysis revealed that individuals who possessed ITN (OR = 0.38, 95% CI (0.194, 0.743) and P = 0.005) and whose houses were sprayed with insecticides (OR = 0.18, 95% CI (0.097, 0.34) and P <0.001) were found less likely to get malaria infection. Individuals living closer to stagnant water had more chance of malaria infection than those who were found at a distant from stagnant water (OR = 0.34, 95% CI (0.19, 0.59) and P<0.001).
Conclusion- The current study revealed that malaria is still public health problem in Batu town, which might indicate the same in other urban areas of the country. Therefore, in order to get the national picture about the prevalence of urban malaria and its associated risk factors, we recommend large scale investigation of the situation.