Prevalence of Malaria Among Clinically Suspected Patients and Pregnant Women in Sudan: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Despite the global efforts towards the elimination of malaria, the disease remains the most significant vector-borne disease among humans, particularly in Africa, whereby many countries including Sudan are still endemic for malaria. This systematic review and meta-analysis is aimed to estimate the hospital-based prevalence of malaria in the country. A comprehensive systematic search was conducted on four electronic databases to identify all published articles that have reported the prevalence data of malaria among symptomatic patients in Sudan from January 1990 to December 2020. Pooled prevalence was estimated by using a random effect model. Nineteen cross-sectional studies with relevant data on prevalence were identified and included in the meta-analysis. The 19 eligible studies have involved 24,203 suspected malaria patients. The prevalence of malaria per study ranged from 1.5 to 70%. The pooled prevalence was estimated to be 25.4% (95% CI: 15.8–35.1%). Moreover, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax were the only reported species, and they were described as mono infection in 16 and 8 studies, respectively, while only 3 studies reported them as a mixed infection. Additionally, high heterogeneity (I2 = 100%, P < 0.000) between the 19 studies was also observed. This is the first systematic review of malaria prevalence in Sudan, which showed a relatively high prevalence estimate of hospital-based malaria among the Sudanese population. Considerable variation in the disease prevalence over the years, between and within regions, was also noticed. These findings would enable malaria control programmes to continue their current efforts in tackling malaria.