Abstract

Malaria transmission and prevalence is still not well documented across Cameroon particularly in medium size cities or localities representing high transit zone. Different risk factors could be associated to persistence malaria transmission such as population movement from high to low transmission settings. A cross sectional community based study was carried out to determine malaria prevalence and risk factors in Makenene, a small city in a forest-savannah which is a crossroads between different parts of the country where travellers usually stop-over day and night to rest. Using malaria diagnostic test (mRDTs from SD-BIOLINE) and microscopy (thin and thick blood smears), 406 participants from 237 households were tested for malaria infection. The prevalence of malaria was high irrespective of the detection method: mRDT (41.87%) and Microscopy (38.42%). At household level, 46.41% of households had at least one case of malaria with an average of 1.41 infected individuals per household. Parasite density was also high with the majority of infected individuals (64.74%) bearing more than 500 parasites/µL of blood. Only P. falciparum was found. The chances of being infected with malaria parasites was almost the same for all participants irrespective of the sleeping behavior, bed net usage, house types and environmental factors. The study supports high malaria transmission in the locality and the need for additional studies on vectors bionomic and transmission patterns.