Six-year trend analysis of malaria prevalence at University of Gondar Specialized Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, from 2014 to 2019

Globally, malaria is the major public health disease caused by plasmodium species and transmitted by the bite of the female anopheles mosquito. Assessment of the trend of malaria prevalence is important in the control and prevention of the disease. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the six year trend of malaria prevalence at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, northwest Ethiopia, from 2014 to 2019. A retrospective laboratory registration logbook review study was conducted on the malaria blood film examination results at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. The data was collected by using a data extraction tool and entered into SPSS version 20 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the socio-demographic characteristics of study participants and presented by graphs, tables and texts. The binary logistic regression was also used to test the association the trend of malaria prevalence and different factors like sex, age, year, and season. From a total of 17,500 malaria blood film examinations, 1341 (7.7%) were confirmed for malaria parasites. Of the confirmed malaria cases, 47.2%, 45.6% and 7.2% were P. vivax, P. falciparum and mixed infection, respectively. The proportion of P. vivax was the predominant species in the first three study years (2014–2016) and P. falciparum became the predominant species in the last three study years (2017–2019). The odds of malaria prevalence was lower by 68%, 60% and 69% in the year 2017, 2018 and 2019 compared to 2014, respectively. It was also 1.41 times higher in males than in females. Moreover, the odds of malaria prevalence were 1.60, 1.64, 2.45 and 1.82 times higher in the age group of < 5, 5–14, 15–24 and 25–54 years old compared to the older age groups (> 54 years old), respectively. Even there was a significant declining in prevalence trend; malaria is still a major public health problem. The study showed that there was high seasonal fluctuation from year to year. Moreover, males and the younger age groups were more affected than females and old age groups, respectively. Therefore, malaria prevention and control activities should be strengthened and require extra efforts by considering these variability.