fever

Use of RDTs resulted in a 2-fold reduction in anti-malarial drug prescription at LLHCFs. The study demonstrated that RDT use is feasible at LLHCFs, and can lead to better targetting of malaria treatment.

In the dry season the RDT has a low positive predictive value, but a very high negative predictive value for malaria-attributable fever. In the rainy season the negative test safely excludes malaria in adults but not in children.

Spatial estimates of childhood fevers and care-seeking rates can be combined with a relational risk model of infection prevalence in the community to estimate the degree of parasitemia in those fevers reaching public health facilities.

The results of this study imply that efforts at curbing under-five mortality due to malaria and pneumonia need to take into account care-seeking behaviour of caregivers of under-fives as well as implementation of strategies.

This study estimates the relative importance to child school performance (indicated by primary repetition) of fever, malaria and some social determinants at the cluster level.

Applying a policy of restricting anti-malarials to RDT-confirmed cases is consistent with an adequate management of fevers in this population. Further studies on the management of fever in younger children are of upmost importance.

The potential benefits of diagnosis will depend on the prevalence of infection among children who report fever. The study has demonstrated a predictable relationship between parasite prevalence in the community and risks of infection among febrile children suggesting that current maps of parasite prevalence could be used to guide diagnostic strategies in Africa.

In a multivariate analysis, splenomegaly (P = 0.04) was the only clinical sign significantly associated with laboratory-confirmed malaria, and sleeping under a bed net was protective (P = 0.05). Our findings show that clinical malaria is diagnosed relatively accurately in rural Sierra Leone.

Urban and rural mothers differed in their responses to childhood fevers. Training drug vendors and caretakers are important measures to improve malaria control. Health facilities with good quality services and readily available drugs should be provided.

We conducted a prospective study to evaluate the aetiologies of fever in returning travelers and to identify the clinical and laboratory factors predictive of malaria in travelers returning from tropical areas with fever.