Prevalence of Malaria and Typhoid Coinfection in Relation to Haematological Profile of University Students in Akure, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Malaria and typhoid fever are endemic febrile diseases with overlapping signs and symptoms notably fever , diarrhoea, vomiting and headache. Objective: The study was aimed to investigate the level of co-infection of malaria and typhoid fever and the haemato-logical parameters among students of the Federal University of Technology Akure. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted on Two hundred students. Venous blood samples were collected for Widal and Malaria test. The Widal agglutination test was performed by the rapid slide titration method using commercial antigen suspension (Cal-Test Diagnostic Inc. Chino, U.S.A.) and Malaria diagnosis was carried out using antigen based-Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT). Results: Of the 200 examined students, 121 (60.5%) were positive for malaria and 161 (80.5%) were positive for typhoid fever. Male were more infected with both malaria and typhoid fever (43% and 40.5% respectively), however, the difference in the prevalence of infections between the genders were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). 103 (51.5%) students had co-infection out of which 78 (39%) males were more infected than 25 (12.5%) females. Age group 21-25 years had the highest co-infection (31%). There is a significant difference between the numbers of students with coin -fection and those without co-infection (P < 0.05). In the hae-matological analyses, this study showed that a reasonable percentage of malaria and typhoid fever infected patients were anaemic (15.5%), 5.8% had higher than normal leuco-cyte count, 13.6% with lymphocyte count lower than normal and 7.8% of the co-infected students had monocyte count higher than the normal range. Conclusion: The incidence of typhoid and malaria coin -fection will greatly reduce when there is improved personal hygiene, targeted vaccination campaigns and intensive community health education on preventive and control measures against malaria and typhoid fever.