Malaria remains one of the main public health problems in the world, including in Angola where 30 years of civil war hampered the coverage by health facilities and accuracy of reporting systems. The main objective of this study was to assess the real prevalence of malaria infection and distribution of the different Plasmodium species over the country since accurate information is still scarce. In these preliminary results a different and generally higher prevalence of each Plasmodium species from previous reports is observed (Webster 2001; Angola National Malaria Programme). According to RBM/WHO (WHO, 2001) malaria is presently the first cause of morbidity and mortality in Angola, changing from hyperendemic to a mesoendemic level, moving from the 6th to the 1st place in the ranking of children mortality causes. The main objective of this study was to re-assess the prevalence of malaria infection and distribution of the different Plasmodium species. This is an ongoing study and we present here the first results obtained in the Kuanza Sul province.
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