PAPER TITLE :LOGISTIC REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF MALARIA PATIENTS TREATED WITH ARTEMISININ-BASED COMBINATION THERAPY (ACT) BY GENDER AND AGE AT OGUI COMMUNITY, ENUGU NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA.

FUTA JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 1 2014

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : A.S. Ajiboye1 and G.O. Awoleye2
  • Abstract:

Due to resistance of malaria parasites to traditional drugs used to treat malaria such as chloroquine, new drugs were
developed. Among them was Artemisinin- based Combination Therapy (ACT) introduced in 2005. To achieve
reduction in malaria incidence, the new drug must be provided to patients in the population, particularly in the rural
communities where treatment facilities were usually in short supply. This work examined the consumption of ACT
procured through the Global Fund for Malaria for poor and less privileged countries of the world, in aOgui
Community, Enugu North Local Government, Enugu State, Nigeria. Descriptive Statistics, Cross-Tabulation and
Logistic Regression methods were used. It was found that male and female sexes benefited almost equally from the
treatment. While a total of 609 females reported at the health facilities in the community in the period under
consideration, 85.0% of them received treatment. For male patients, 701 reported at the health facilities within the
same period, 84.3% received treatment. The age group (06months – 14 years) had the largest number of reported
cases of malaria in the community during the period. About 738 reported cases were recorded and 96.7% were
treated with ACT. Among the age group ‘above 14 years’, only 572 cases were recorded in the same period and
69.8% received treatment with ACT. The logistic regression model showed that age has effect on the probability of
receiving treatment while sex had no effect. Overall, logistic regression showed a good fit for modeling the odds of
receiving treatment with ACT.
Keywords:Gender, Artemisinin-based combination therapy, Health facility, Odds ratio, Malaria, logistic regression