Background Plasmodium falciparum malaria during pregnancy poses a substantial risk to mother and foetus. In recent years, convincing evidence has shown that preventive methods such as the use of insecticide treated bed nets (ITNs) and intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) in pregnancy with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-sp) can greatly reduce the adverse effects of malaria during pregnancy. Purpose The main purpose of the study was to assess the knowledge and use of Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Malaria among pregnant women receiving Antenatal Care at the primary health centers of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja Nigeria. Methods A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted Structured questionnaires were administered to 300 pregnant women aged between 18 and 49 years. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 22. Results The results revealed that most of the respondents had knowledge about IPT, majority of the respondents had received IPT drugs, in the clinic, but unfortunately none of them were supervised by a health worker during taking of the drug. Few of the respondents did not take the drugs at all for fear of complication, some of them did not know exactly how many tablets were given to them and there was poor adherence to the Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) scheme. Conclusion Knowledge of malaria and IPT was good and many pregnant women received the drugs and used it, but some of them had challenges and did not use the drugs. / Health Studies / M.P.H.

Background: Group B streptococcus (GBS) is regarded as one of the most important causes of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality in many parts of the world. GBS recto-vaginal colonization is important in the health of a mother and her neonate, especially in developing countries. Maternal vaginal colonization with GBS at the time of delivery can cause vertical transmission to the neonate. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is a technique used to characterize microbial isolates by means of sequencing internal fragments of housekeeping genes and has the advantage of reproducibility and has been shown to correlate with the other typing techniques and thus has emerged as the standard for delineating the clonal population of GBS. The study aimed to investigate the epidemiology of GBS colonization among pregnant women and their neonates, and to characterize the isolates by multilocus sequence typing technique at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital, Pretoria. Methodology: A total of 413 pregnant women who visited the antenatal clinic were recruited and screened. Participants were interviewed using a questionnaire to gather demographic and other relevant information such as history of current pregnancy, previous miscarriages and still births. Samples from maternal rectum and vagina as well as neonate ear and umbilical cord were taken for culture using colistin and nalidixic acid (CNA) blood agar and incubated for 24-48 hours. If negative after 48 hours, Todd-Hewitt broth was subcultured after 18-48 hours onto sheep blood agar. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to characterize seven group B streptococcus isolates collected at Dr George Mukhari academic hospital. Fragments of seven housekeeping genes were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for each strain and sequenced. CLC bio software (Inqaba biotech, South Africa; Pretoria) was used to analyse sequenced loci and UPGMA dendrogram was constructed. Results: The colonization rate for GBS in pregnant women and their neonates was 30.9% and 0%, respectively. A higher proportion of GBS were isolated from the rectum (37.9%) as compared to the vagina (20.6%). Most socio-economic, demographic and obstetric factors analysed were not significantly associated with.GBS colonization. On 128 positive samples, the results of Todd-Hewitt enrichment broth and direct plating method using CNA were compared. A total of 45.3% of colonised were positive on direct selective agar (CNA); an additional 54.7% samples were recovered from Todd-Hewitt broth. Three genes (adhP, glnA and tkt) were sequenced successfully for six samples (1, 2. 4,6,12 and 65). The UPGMA tree with 1000 bootstrap showing the relationship between six samples was drawn.Conclusion: This study revealed that pregnant women of all ages are at risk of group B streptococcus colonization. Group B streptococcus was common among pregnant women at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital. No socio-economic risk factor was associated with group B streptococcus colonization. Results confirm that the combination of Todd-Hewitt broth and CNA agar plate is a time saving and sensitive method. The allelic profile, characteristics such as G+C (guanine+cytosine) content and dN/dS ratio were not analysed because of the smaller sample size used in this study, which shows that the MLST method was unsuccessful in this study. The UPGMA tree based on differences in consensus of the isolates showed that all group B streptococcus isolates are clustered and descend from a single node. / Life Sciences / M.Sc. (Life Sciences)