The effect of malaria suppression in a group of accra school children

Between July, 1953, and July, 1954, a total of 77 school children of seven years of age were treated with pyrimethamine and amodiaquine in Accra, Gold Coast; 76 controls received dummy tablets during the same period. The parasite rate in the treated group fell from 59 per cent. to zero and the spleen rate from 38 per cent. to 4 per cent. Such variation in size of liver as was observed may have been due to chance. The absentee rate in the treated school children was reduced, and it is calculated that they were saved about 5–6 days' incapacitating sickness by treatment during the year. A slightly greater increase of weight was noted in the treated group, but this may have been due to chance.