Duffy Blood Group Distribution among Patients in a Malaria Endemic Region

Abstract

Background: It was noted since in the 1920s that Black Africans had some intrinsic resistance to infection with malaria. Duffy negative status is suggested to play a role in resistance to malaria infection and has been reported with higher frequencies in countries where there is a high incidence of Plasmodium vivax malaria. We carried out this study to find out the distribution of Duffy blood group among patients in a tertiary hospital. Study Design: Two hundred and twenty nine hospitalized patients requiring a red cell transfusion with age range of between 1 year and 75 years and mean age of 27.3 years, were recruited for the study. Materials and Methods: Three milliliters of whole blood was collected from each subject into an EDTA anticoagulated tubes. The red cell was typed for Duffy antigen using potent antisera from Lorne Laboratory UK according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Results: This study reported that 19.2% were Duffy positive (Fya+b-, Fya-b+ and Fya+b+ with respective prevalence of 7.4%, 4.4% and 7.4%) while 80.8% (61.1% Females and 19.7% Males) of the patients were Duffy negative (Fy a-b-). The prevalence of Duffy negative was highest among age group 21-30 with 26.2%, followed by age group 31-40 with 17.5% and the least was age group 41 – 50 years with 3.5%. The prevalence of Duffy negative among the three ethnic groups of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba was 180(78.6%), 2(0.9%) and 3(1.3%) respectively. Conclusion: We concluded that we now have Duffy positive group in Nigeria a potential risk to P. vivax infection and recommend that the Nigeria government should carry out an epidemiological study on the prevalence of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi.