Awareness, perception and acceptance of malaria vaccine among women of the reproductive age group in a rural community in Soba, Kaduna State, North-west Nigeria.

Malaria vaccine is one of the novel strategies currently being evaluated for use in malaria control in children under five. Objectives: The study aimed to determine the awareness, perception and acceptance of malaria vaccine among women of the reproductive age group in a rural community in Soba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, North-West Nigeria. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study and total population sampling was used to recruit 236 women aged between 15-49 years. The data were collected using an open data kit (ODK-1) mounted on android tablets and entered into International Business Machine Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) version 23 Software. Binary logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between the predictor and the outcome variables. Ap-value of less than or equal to 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Only 131 (56%) of the subjects ever heard about malaria vaccines. Of these, 95 (72.5%) knew that the vaccine could prevent malaria and 104 (96.8%) believe that the vaccine was necessary for the prevention of malaria. Further, 89 (67.9%) subjects among those aware of the vaccine would voluntarily allow their children to get vaccinated and 93 (71%), would recommend the vaccines for others. Similarly, 98 (74.8%) of those aware of the vaccine would recommend the vaccine for the National Program on Immunisation. Conclusion: The awareness of the malaria vaccine in the subjects was low while the perception and acceptability of the vaccine were high. None of the risk factors investigated was independently related to awareness of the vaccine. Public enlightenment and further qualitative studies to explore a context-specific perception of the malaria vaccines are recommended

Morbidity and mortality of childhood illnesses at the emergency pediatric unit of a tertiary hospital, north-eastern Nigeria

Background: Under-five morbidity and mortality from childhood preventable diseases are still very high in most of the developing countries, especially Nigeria. We describe the morbidity and mortality of childhood illnesses at the Emergency Pediatric Unit (EPU) of the Federal Medical Centre, Azare. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study of Emergency Pediatric Unit admissions over a 1-year period. Epi-info statistical software was used for data analysis. Results: A total of 1,161 patients, aged 1 month to 13 years with a mean age (±1 SD) of 9.8 ± 2.6 years were admitted into EPU during the period. There were 576 (49.6%) males and 585 (50.4%) females and 1,034 (89.1%) patients were children under 5 years of age. The major causes of admission were malaria (44.8%). There were 103 (8.9%) discharges, 886 (76.3%) transfers to pediatric wards, 38 (3.3%) referrals to other hospitals, and 11 (0.9%) discharges against medical advice. There were 123 (10.6%) deaths during the period of the study with 107 (87.0%) of the deceased being children ≤5 years of age. Severe malaria 61 (49.6%) was the major cause of deaths in the unit, followed by Protein energy malnutrition (PEM) and pneumonia occurring in each of 10 (8.1%) patients. Conclusion: Malaria, PEM, and pneumonia remained the major causes of morbidity and mortality, especially among the under-five children