A five year trend analysis of malaria prevalence in Guba district, Benishangul-Gumuz regional state, western Ethiopia: a retrospective study

BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia, malaria is a serious public health concern and has great impact on socio-economy. The trend analysis of malaria data from health facilities is useful for understanding its transmission dynamics and implementing evidence-based malaria control strategies. The aim of this study was to determine the trends of malaria infection in Guba district, western Ethiopia. METHODS: A retrospective study was undertaken at Mankush Health Centre, western Ethiopia. All malaria cases reported from 2014 to 2018 were carefully reviewed from the laboratory record books to determine the trends of malaria morbidity. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. RESULTS: In total, 16,964 malaria suspects were diagnosed using microscopy over the last 5 years, of which 8658 (51.04%) were confirmed positive cases. Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, and mixed infection (both species) accounted for 75.2, 24.5 and 0.28% of the cases, respectively. Males patients were more affected (n = 5028, 58.1%) than female ones (n = 3630, 41.9%). Of the total confirmed cases, 60.4% were age group of subjects (≥ 15 years) followed by 22.6% of 5–14 years and 15.9% of under 5 years. High malaria prevalence was observed in spring (September to November) season, while the least was observed in autumn (March to May) with the prevalence of 45.6 and 11.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated that malaria is a public health concern, in which P. falciparum is the predominant species followed by P. vivax. Therefore, the district health bureau and other concerned stakeholders should strength evidence-based malaria control and prevention interventions to interrupt disease transmission and eventual reduction malaria of malaria cases in Guba district.