Authors : I.K. Adewuyi , O.T. Oke , A.O.J. Amoo , O.A. Adefioye and E.O.Akanni
Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of malaria parasitemia among suspected cases of malaria, with the ABO blood group and haemoglobin genotype and also to find out if bacteramia is a normal concurrent infection in malarious patients. Five hundred and fifteen suspected cases were examined by Giemsa staining method using both thick and thin blood films. The simple code from one to four crosses was used to determine relative malaria parasite count. Four hundred and fifteen (80.6%) were positive for malaria parasite. The prevalence was 222 (89.2%), 193 (72.6%) for females and males, respectively. There was high prevalence of malaria parasitemia in blood group O (90.0%) and lowest was in blood group AB (31.3%). Considering haemoglobin genotype, 311 (85.2%) was the prevalence for malaria parasite in AA, with genotype SS recording the least with (44.0%). Of all the 515 cases examined in this study, bacteria were isolated from the blood of only eight subjects (1.6%) and this was considered insignificant (p>0.05) thus, pointing out that bacteramia may not be a usual occurrence with malaria parasitemia. The age group 1-10 years had the highest occurrence of parasitemia with (91.7%) while the least was obtained in age range 21-30 years with (70.9%). It was observed that the density of malaria parasitemia was highest in age group 1-10 years meaning parasite density decreases with increasing age. Also, genotype AA had the highest malaria density.
I.K. Adewuyi , O.T. Oke , A.O.J. Amoo , O.A. Adefioye and E.O.Akanni , 2008. Malaria Parasitemia: It’s Association with Bacteramia, Haemoglobin Genotype and ABO Blood Group System. Research Journal of Medical Sciences, 2: 137-141.