Some haematological profiles of children with malaria parasitaemia in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Some haematological profiles of children with malaria parasitaemia in Port Harcourt was studied with the concent of the hospital management. The study-area was zoned into A, B, and C, for convenience. Three hundred and fifty-two subjects aged
<1-14 years were investigated and of this number, 227 (65.5%) were infected. Zone B (Jeconiah Hospital) had the highest infection rate of 32.4% while Zone A (Palmers Hospital) had the least infection rate of 15.6%. Males (35.28%) are more significantly infected (p<0.05) than females (29.3%). There was a decrease in haemoglobin level (8.3 g/dl) and an increase in the white blood cell count (7.5 x 109/L) of infected subjects due to immune response to infection when compared with the controls 10.7 g/dl and 3.1 x 102/1 respectively, the differences were statistically significantly (p<0.05). Subjects belonging to blood group O Rh positive had the highest infection rate (35.8%) while subjects belonging to blood group AB Rhesus positive had the least infection rate (1.1%). Also, subjects with haemoglobin genotypes AA had the highest infection rate (51.1%) against AS
subjects (12.2%) and SS subjects (1.1%).

Keywords: malaria parasitaemia, haematological profiles, children.

Nigerian Journal of Parasitology Vol. 29 (2) 2008: pp. 92-97