Diagnosis Of Malaria by Community Health Workers in Nigeria

The introduction of primary health care made Nigeria, a developing country, train and retrain community health workers to work all over the country especially in the rural communities where there is dearth of or no doctors. Despite their training and experience many people are skeptical of their competence to diagnose accurately, or to treat endemic disease like malaria. The need to establish the competence of the health workers in malaria control necessitated this study. A rural primary health center was selected. The community health technician (CHT) was the health worker in charge. Those who were diagnosed as having malaria by CHT were examined by a medical laboratory scientist (who was engaged specifically for this job) for malaria parasitaemia. The laboratory examination was Giamsa - stained thick blood from fingerprint. Those with positive parasite density count of 1000/?L were said to be malaria patients. The study was from March - October 2006. The number diagnosed as having malaria on clinical grounds by CHT was 2,512 while the number diagnosed by both clinical and laboratory basis was 2,490. The number of patients with a wrong diagnosis of malaria by CHT was 22 (0.875%). The CHT is useful in the diagnosis and by extension in the control of such endemic disease as malaria where there are no laboratory facilities. Both the populace should have confidence in their services and those in areas where they have been trained and experienced.