Journal of School of Public Health and

  Background and Aim : Asymptomatic malaria is a great challenge in the control, elimination and eradication programs of the disease in the endemic areas. The infected individuals with asymptomatic malaria are not cured and are, consequently, a potential source for contamination of the mosquito vectors and spread of the disease in the area. Therefore, detection of asymptomatic infected people is very important as regards combating the disease. This study was conducted to determine the presence and prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in Jask district, Hormozgan Province, Iran during 2012-13, in the hope that the results will help in designing strategies to eliminate the disease in the area.

  Materials and Methods: A total of 200 persons under coverage of health centers in Jask district were selected randomly and enrolled in the study. From each subject a 5-ml blood sample was taken in 3 occasions (total number of samples = 600), slides p repared and examined using microscopic and molecular (PCR) methods, as well as rapid diagnostic (RDT) tests.

  Results: None of the 600 slides prepared microscopically showed any positive malaria case. Neither did any of those prepared by RDTs or Nested-PCR.

  Conclusion : The findings of this study indicate that implementation of the malaria control program has been successful in the area therefore the malaria elimination program should continue.

Background and Aim: Malaria is still one of the major health problems in comparison with any other parasitic disease in Iran with considerable economic and mortality consequences. Sistan-and-Baluchestan, Hormozgan and Kerman are the most affected provinces in the country approximately 96% of the cases are reported from these three provinces. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency, distribution and rate of parasitaemia of human Plasmodium (P.) species in patients infected with malaria parasites in Kerman province.

Materials and Methods: A total of 92,798 peripheral blood smears were collected from suspected malaria patients during the period 2009-10. Thin and thick blood smears were prepared according to the World Health Organization (WHO) standard procedure. Percentage of parasitaemia was determined based on the number of parasites in the positive slides. The Chi-square test was used for data analysis.

Results: A total of 571 samples were found to contain human Plasmodium species, including 523, 44, and 4 cases of P. vivax, P. falciparum and mixed infection, respectively. The results also showed that, as compared with the previous year, the total number of P. vivax cases

decreased in 2010 by 33.96%. The highest level of parasitaemia was observed in one of the patients infected with P. falciparum, with 77240 parasites/µl of blood, and the lowest in a patient infected with P. vivax, with 48 parasites/µl of blood. There were no differences between the positive and negative cases as regards parameters such as nationality, habitat or gender (Chi-square, p<0.05).  Furthermore, based on the Mann-Whitney test, there was no significant difference between the mean counts of P. falciparum and P. vivax (p-value = 0.464).

Conclusion: Considering that Iran is in the elimination stage of malaria, patient finding and rapid, timely diagnosis of the disease are very important, particularly cases coming from Pakistan and Afghanistan, helping sustainability of the elimination program.

Background and Aim: Nowadays, in health promotion and disease prevention great emphasis is put on participatory community-based approaches. These approaches are considered as the main strategy of health promotion by using multiple interventions. Community assessment is a participatory research approach in which problems prioritization and resource distribution are done using information collected in a region aiming at promoting health of the community.

Materials and Methods: In this applied research community assessment was made in the Chahestaniha region in the City of BandarAbbas with the objective of identifying and prioritizing the main problems. The assessment consisted of eight phases, namely, the formation of a community assessment team, Primary and secondary data collection, data analysis and interpretation, combining district-level health statistics with community assessment data, reporting to the community, prioritizing health problems, and prepared a community assessment document.  In the eighth phase, after considering all risk factors that cause high prevalence of Children head lice, the action plan was designed and implemented to solve the problems.

Results: The Chahestaniha community assessment led to identifying 52 problems. The priority problems were classified. High prevalence of lice on children’s head was chosen as the top major problem to be solved, an action plan for solving it was developed and implemented.

Conclusion: The full cycle of community assessment methodology can be applied, with only some small changes, in most communities with different sizes, cultures, traditions and social habits. The method can obtain participation of the people in conducting the study and implementing interventions.