High prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in south-eastern Bangladesh

BACKGROUND: The WHO has reported that RDT and microscopy-confirmed malaria cases have declined in recent years. However, it is still unclear if this reflects a real decrease in incidence in Bangladesh, as particularly the hilly and forested areas of the Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) Districts report more than 80% of all cases and deaths. surveillance and epidemiological data on malaria from the CHT are limited; existing data report Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax as the dominant species. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in the District of Bandarban, the southernmost of the three Hill Tracts Districts, to collect district-wide malaria prevalence data from one of the regions with the highest malaria endemicity in Bangladesh. A multistage cluster sampling technique was…