Better way to get count

[Lionel]

What is a better way to get the count in below query? The code in the foreach loop is killing me. I am trying to get the number of threads with same threadprefix

$getcount=$db->query_first("SELECT count(*) as tot from ".TABLE_PREFIX."thread WHERE threadprefix='$threadprefix'");
$tot = number_format($getcount['tot']);

PHP Code:

$getprefixes=$db->query_read("SELECT forumid,threadprefix from ".TABLE_PREFIX."forum 
WHERE forumid='276'");
$color1 = "alt1";  
$color2 = "alt2";
$row_count = 0;
WHILE($foruminfo=$db->fetch_array($getprefixes)) {
$threadprefixes = explode("\r\n", unhtmlspecialchars($foruminfo['threadprefix']));
foreach ($threadprefixes as $threadprefix)
{
$getcount=$db->query_first("SELECT count(*) as tot from ".TABLE_PREFIX."thread WHERE threadprefix='$threadprefix'");
$tot = number_format($getcount['tot']);
if(!empty($threadprefix)){
$forumid=$foruminfo['forumid'];
$moviecat="<a href=\"forumdisplay.php?s=&f=$forumid&threadprefix=$threadprefix\">".$threadprefix."</a>";
eval('$movies .= "' . fetch_template('hw_catcount') . '";');
}
}