Patterns of malaria indices across three consecutive seasons in children in a highly endemic area of West Africa: a three times-repeated cross-sectional study

Table 2 Parasite densities among different strata of children

Variable		All children	Children positive for P. falciparum
	Class	Prevalence	AMPD	GMPD	n	p-value (‡)
Season	Dry 2001	58.0%	6143	1226	411	-
	Rainy 2001	58.3%	5246	1151	409	0.934
	Dry 2002	57.8%	3342	401	421	<0.001**
Age group	1-3 years	53.9%	12630	1685	172	-
	4-6 years	60.8%	4461	1101	402	0.019*
	7-9 years	58.3%	3361	701	337	<0.001**
	10-12 years	58.2%	3166	651	266	<0.001**
Spleen score	0	54.3%	4049	778	866	-
	1	65.9%	5695	1576	135	< 0.001**
	2	71.3%	7067	1138	224	< 0.001**
	3	66.7%	13675	1787	16	0.080
Hematocrit class	< 32%	62.1%	6583	1076	609	-
	32%-35%	55.3%	3587	688	360	<0.001**
	>35%	53.5%	2855	801	272	<0.002*

To best represent the distribution of malaria parasites in different classes of the population studied, three parameters are represented: prevalence of P. falciparum (%), arithmetic mean of parasite density (AMPD in parasites/ul), and geometric mean of parasite density (GMPD in parasites/ul). (n) Number of subjects in each class. (‡) p-value obtained by comparing GMPDs with the first row as the reference, using Wilcoxon tests. (*) Statistical significance was set at 0.05. (**) p-value less than 0.001.

ISSN: 1475-2875