Assessment of the Different Methods of Diagnosis of Malaria Parasite Among Children in Port Harcourt Metropolis

Malaria affects millions of lives annually, and it is considered as one of the major global health challenges. Plasmodium species are responsible for malaria infection, and are transmitted through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Over 90% of malaria related death world-wide is caused by Plasmodium falciparum. This cross sectional study was carried out to determine the different methods of diagnosis of malaria parasite among children within Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers state Nigeria. A total of 264 children (116) male and (148) female were recruited for the study. Venous blood collected from the subjects using Ethylene Diamine Tetra Acetic Acid (EDTA) container were examined using Giemsa stained thick and thin blood film and malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits. The result revealed an overall prevalence of 12.5% for microscopy, while RDT showed 8.7% prevalence. Children under the age of 5 had a higher prevalence by microscopy (13.04%) compared to RDT (8.07%). For age between 5-10, microscopy also detected more cases (11.65%) than RDT (9.71%). The P-value (0.7385) indicates there is no significant difference between age groups and malaria infection. Microscopy showed a slightly higher infection rates in females (12.84%) than males (12.07%), while RDT results are similar with slightly higher infection rates in females (8.78%) than males (8.62%). The P-value (0.6616) indicates there is no significant difference between gender and malaria prevalence. The diagnostic comparison of Microscopy and RDT results in the study showed that Microscopy had a high sensitivity of 94.29%, while RDT’s sensitivity is lower at 67.65%. Both tests have perfect specificity (100%). The positive predictive value (PPV) is 100% for microscopy but only 69.7% for RDT. Overall, microscopy outperforms RDT in detecting malaria accurately, especially in identifying positives. The higher infection rate found in children under five years old highlights that they are the most vulnerable group and should be a major focus for prevention and control efforts.