The risk of imported malaria in security forces personnel returning from overseas missions in the context of prevention of re-introduction of malaria to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is a malaria-free country. However it remains surrounded by countries with endemic malaria transmission. Since the last indigenous case of malaria was reported in October 2012, only imported malaria cases have been diagnosed with 36 cases detected in 2015, which includes 17 cases each of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum and two cases of Plasmodium ovale.
This study investigated the knowledge and practices regarding malaria chemoprophylaxis among all the Sri Lankan security forces personnel returning from peacekeeping missions in malaria endemic countries over a 7 month period. Adherence to other malaria prevention measures, occurrence of adverse events and incident cases of malaria were also recorded maintaining the anonymity of the respondents. Potential associations for non-compliance were studied.
Interviews were carried out with 559 security forces personnel returning home from foreign deployments in malaria-endemic regions (males: 550, 98.4 %). The majority (553, 98.9 %) was well aware of the need for chemoprophylaxis during the overseas stay and its regular use as prescribed. The overall adherence to chemoprophylaxis was good with 78.7 % (440/559) reporting regular, as prescribed, use. Having better educational qualifications, being female, being prescribed mefloquine, having fever during deployment and belonging to a security force other than the army were significantly associated with poor compliance (p < 0.05).
The study reveals that knowledge regarding malaria chemoprophylaxis among Sri Lankan security forces personnel serving abroad was good, a fact that may have contributed to absence/extremely low incidence of malaria during deployment.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 April 2017.
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#13,992,805
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Altmetric has tracked 24,400,706 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 41st percentile – i.e., 41% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,827 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.0. This one is in the 41st percentile – i.e., 41% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 192 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
