Abstract:
Background
Malaria is a serious health problem in Malawi. It is
responsible for 43% of all out patient visits and 19% of all
deaths occurring to children under five years of age. Rapid
diagnosis and appropriate treatment can avert most malaria
deaths. However this is not always possible in resource
limited settings where functioning laboratories are almost
nonexistent.
Methods
This paper assesses the accuracy of local terminology in
detecting parasitemia in children using blood smears as the
reference standard.
Results
The study observes that there are local terms that can be used
as an inexpensive, readily available and easily implementable
malaria screening test in Malawian children in rural areas.
These terms include “malungo” (official name for malaria),
“kutentha thupi” (hot body), “kutsegula m’mimba” (official
term for diarrhoea) and “kukhosomola” (coughing). The
local terms “malungo” and “kutentha thupi” yielded better
results.
Conclusion
Although the local terminology produced results that are
less than optimal, the study concludes that the knowledge
of sensitivity and specificity of local terminology can be
used by local healthcare practitioners to identify children
who could benefit from malaria confirmation testing and
presumptive treatment. The study, however, cautions that
these terms should be used as an entry point to malaria case
management as they do not distinguish the severity of the
malaria infection and all of them produced a sensitivity of
less than 50%.
