A study to find the commonest plasmodium malaria in Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh

Introduction: Due to thorough implementation of national malaria eradication programme, there was drastic decline in malaria. A study was conducted to find the commonest malaria causing plasmodium in paediatric age group. Materials and methods: Study was conducted in Great Eastern Medical School & Hospital, Andhra Pradesh from January to December 2019, approved by the institutional ethics committee. Children aged < 12 years with clinical suspicion of malaria were included. Blood was collected following standard aseptic precautions in sterile EDTA tube, 2 smears were prepared. Thin smear was stained by giemsa and thick smear by Jaswant Singh Battacharya staining. As a part of internal quality control, all positive and 25% of negative smears were randomly screened. Commercially available, rapid malaria Pan+Pf cards were used for antigen detection. Chi square test was used to find statistical difference, P>0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Total 601(59%) were malaria cases, 559 were positive by blood smear examination (BSE) and 579 by raid diagnostic technique (RDT), male female ratio was 0.97. More cases were detected in 5 – 10 years. With BSE, 31.1% were identified as Plasmodium falciparum and 41.6% by RDT. Conclusion: Plasmodium falciparum is the predominant malaria causing agent in this area