Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College, P.O. Box 2240, Moshi Tanzania.
Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute, P.O. Box 2236, Moshi Tanzania.
Afr Health Sci. 2020 Mar;20(1):199-207. doi: 10.4314/ahs.v20i1.25.
The overlap of symptoms, geographic and seasonal co-occurrence of and infections makes malaria diagnosis difficult, increasing the chances of misdiagnosis. The paucity of data on the prevalence and infections contributes to an overly diagnosis of malaria. We aimed to determine the prevalence and distribution of and infections in northern Tanzania.
A community based, cross sectional survey was conducted in two sites in Northern Tanzania. PCR was used to detect and infections.
The prevalence of and were 31/128 (24.2%) and 3/128 (2.3%), respectively. No Rickettsia infection was detected in any of the two sites. Taking study sites separately, infection was detected in 31/63(49.2%) of participants in Bondo while infection was detected in 3/65(4.6%) of participants in Magugu. was not detected in Magugu while no infections were detected in Bondo. Fever was significantly associated with infection (χ2= 12.44, p<0.001) and age (χ2=17.44, p=0.000).
Results from this study indicate infection as the main cause of fever in the studied sites. While and contribute to fevers, infection is an insignificant cause of fever in Northern Tanzania.
疟疾和立氏立克次体感染的症状重叠，地理和季节同时发生，使得疟疾的诊断变得困难，增加了误诊的可能性。关于疟疾和立氏立克次体感染的患病率数据的缺乏导致了对疟疾的过度诊断。我们旨在确定坦桑尼亚北部疟疾和立氏立克次体感染的流行率和分布。
在坦桑尼亚北部的两个地点进行了一项基于社区的横断面调查。使用 PCR 检测疟原虫和立氏立克次体感染。
疟原虫和立氏立克次体的患病率分别为 31/128（24.2%）和 3/128（2.3%）。在这两个地点都没有检测到立氏立克次体感染。分别考虑两个研究地点，Bondo 的 63 名参与者中有 31 名（49.2%）检测到感染，而 Magugu 的 65 名参与者中有 3 名（4.6%）检测到感染。Magugu 未检测到，而 Bondo 未检测到感染。发热与疟原虫感染显著相关（χ2=12.44，p<0.001）和年龄（χ2=17.44，p=0.000）。
本研究结果表明，疟原虫感染是研究地点发热的主要原因。虽然立氏立克次体和疟原虫感染会引起发热，但在坦桑尼亚北部，立氏立克次体感染并不是发热的主要原因。
