Statistical analysis of the symptoms contributing to the diagnosis of malaria: a case study of federal medical Centre Ilara, Ogun state, Nigeria

Abstract

Malaria in humans is an acute or sub-acute infectious disease caused by one of six protozoan species of the genus Plasmodium: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale wallikeri, P. ovale curtisi, P. malariae and P. knowlesi, transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria remains one of the most serious global health problems with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting hundreds of millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. The study aimed at carrying out statistical analysis on patients who presented themselves to the physician on their claim of having malaria, a case study of Federal Polytechnic Ilaro Medical Centre, Ogun state, Nigeria. The participants were 337 patients of which 180 are Female and 157 are Male within the age range of 3-77 years of age. The statistical analysis of symptoms contributing to the diagnosis of malaria highlighted several key findings. Logistic regression was used for the basic analysis of the dataset and it was discovered that people in the age range 38–47 years are mostly affected with malaria and that females are the most infected gender species with headache being the most significant symptom based on its Wald statistic value.