Curative Pregnancy Associated Malaria Management In Women Attending Antenatal Care In The South West Region Of Cameroon

Malaria infections during pregnancy lead to sequestration of parasite infected red blood cells in the placenta. Placental infection can result in adverse outcomes for mothers and infants. Despite many studies, it remains unclear which peripheral blood infections during pregnancy lead to development of placental malaria. Understanding the timing of peripheral infections that lead to placental malaria and the ability of intermittent preventive treatment with sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine (SP-IPT) and artemisinin-based combination therapy to clear infections will enable the rational design of new interventions to decrease the burden of malaria in pregnancy. This was a facility based cross sectional study using a research instrument with participants’ medical records. Data was managed and then analyzed. based on the research questions and the following conclusions and recommendations were arrived at: Pregnancy associated malaria can occur in any trimester and though the use of IPT-SP as a preventive measure has been effective to a greater extent ,some women still get sick of malaria; hence the need for curative malaria treatment with recommended anti malarial drugs e.g arteminisin based combination therapy. In the context of late enrollment in antenatal care, interventions that protect all women of childbearing age and throughout pregnancy are needed. The ability of anti-malarial drugs to prevent or clear placental infections should be considered in the development of future interventions. Also, there’s need to develop a vaccine against pregnancy-associated malaria in the near future based on the action of variant surface antigens (VSA) found on infected erythrocytes.