The age patterns of severe malaria syndromes in sub-Saharan Africa across a range of transmission intensities and seasonality settings.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A greater understanding of the relationship between transmission intensity, seasonality and the age-pattern of malaria is needed to guide appropriate targeting of malaria interventions in different epidemiological settings.

Methods

A systematic literature review identified studies which reported the age of paediatric hospital admissions with cerebral malaria (CM), severe malarial anaemia (SMA), or respiratory distress (RD). Study sites were categorized into a 3 × 2 matrix of Plasmodium falciparum transmission intensity and seasonality. Probability distributions were fitted by maximum likelihood methods, and best fitting models were used to estimate median ages and to represent graphically the age-pattern of each outcome for each transmission category in the matrix

SUBMITTER: Roca-Feltrer A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2992028 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature