Abstract:

Background: Malaria is a public health problem in Tanzania affecting all age groups. It is known that school children are the age group mostly commonly infected with malaria parasites. Their infections are usually asymptomatic, go unnoticed and thus never get treated, result in anaemia, reduced ability to concentrate and learn in school and if fallen sick may lead to school absenteeism. Effective malaria control requires frequent evaluation of effectiveness of different malaria interventions so as to reduce the impact of malaria among this vulnerable population.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study design involving 211 school children aged 6 to 12years from two primary schools at Sangabuye ward, Ilemela district was conducted. Random sampling was used to obtain the primary schools and study participants. Fingerprick blood samples was collected for Plasmodium parasite detection by malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT). A questionnaire was administered to assess the factors associated with malaria infection.

Result: Mean age was 8 years. Among these, 123(58.29%) were female and the rest 88 (41.71%)were males. The largest participants were from Nyafula primary school which were 152(72.04%) and the rest were 59(27.97%) from Sangabuye primary school. Most participants had ITNs 131 (62.09%) but not all slept under INTs only 97(74.05%), among 211 participant 121(57.35%) did not have mosquito screen, more than half lived near water source 114 (54.03) and most of them used both lake and tapewater 184 (87.20%), most study participant thought cutting bushes was good method of preventing malaria 48 (22.75%)

Conclusion: High prevalence of asymptomatic malaria among school children in Mwanza ,most of them being girls, having treated mosquito nets and not sleeping under treated mosquito nets, living near water source. Further studies with large sample size to identify active cases are warranted in Mwanza.