Antimalarial Drug Prescribing Practice in Pediatrics in a University Teaching Hospital

Abstract

The study was carried out to describe the antimalarial drug prescribing practice in pediatrics in the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu.

The specific objectives were to determine: the cases that were diagnosed based on laboratory investigation; the specific antimalarial drugs prescribed for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria cases between 2003-2011;

the changes- if any- in the prescription pattern of the prescribers following the introduction of the Treatment Guidelines and the level of their compliance to the guidelines

The patients’ medical charts were assessed. The exclusion criteria were patients with uncomplicated malaria below 6 months of age and above 5 years of age, and patients with special disease conditions like HIV.

Inclusion criterion was patients with uncomplicated malaria between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. A total of 3034 prescriptions were collected for data extraction and analysis.

With the use of a modified WHO prescribing indicator form, these data were collected; demographic data, clinical presentations (symptoms), laboratory investigation and the specific antimalarial drugs prescribed.

Data were grouped into two; the pre-policy period (2003-2005) and the post-policy period (2006-2011), and then analysed using Excel spreadsheet and SPSS.14.0 software for descriptive and inferential statistics respectively.

Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

Malaria is a global public health problem and remains one of the major killers in many parts of the world, especially in the endemic countries. In Europe malaria was particularly present in the Mediterranean basin and Eastern regions, including the European Russia.

From the mid nineteenth Century forward the process of regression of malaria started in North-Western European countries, as England and Holland, where the improvement of the health services in urban and rural areas progressed rapidly and resulted in a better control of the anopheline mosquitoes population.

Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, malaria in Europe underwent a continual reduction, thanks to a combination of improved economic situation and control measures regularly implemented.

In 1955 the WHO launched the Global Malaria Eradication program, a worldwide campaign for the eradication of malaria based on the use of DDT and other insecticides with residual activity applied inside the housing against vector Anopheles mosquitoes and on the use of antimalarial drugs for the elimination of plasmodia in humans.

The campaign brought, toward the end of the 1960s, the eradication of malaria in all developed countries where malaria was endemic (Mediterranean countries, many regions of the tropics, etc.)

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