Incidence of malaria infection and adherence to antimalarial treatment guidelines at Bingham University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Nigeria

The development of antimalarial resistance has been a foremost barrier to malaria control. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of malaria infection and adherence to Antimalarial Treatment Guidelines (ATG) at Bingham University Teaching Hospital (BhUTH), Jos, Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out to assess malaria infection diagnosis, antimalarials prescription pattern and adherence to the ATG by physicians over a two-year period. The study extracted data from 570 prescriptions of different patients and 227 patient files. The demographics of the patients was also obtained. Analyses were carried out using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study revealed that of the 227 patients treated for malaria, 65 % (n=148) underwent laboratory investigations before treatment while 35 % (n=79) were treated empirically. Artemether-Lumefantrine was the most prescribed antimalarial for treatment of uncomplicated malaria while parenteral Arteether andSulfadoxine/Pyrimethamine (SP) was the mainstay for treating severe malaria. This study also revealed that physicians placed patients on antimalarials without confirmatory test indicating poor adherence to the ATG. Adherence to ATG has the potential to limit resistance to antimalarial drugs and should therefore be discouraged.