Relationship between Haemoglobin Genotype and Malaria in Patients Attending Clinics in Ile-Ife, Osun State Nigeria

Abstract

The World Health Organisation estimates that about 3.3 billion people- roughly half of humanity’s population on earth- are at the risk of getting infected with Plasmodium spp, the causative agent for. It also estimates that 9 out of 10 of all global malaria cases take place in Africa, with majority of malaria-caused or malaria-related deaths also occurring in Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. This therefore makes malaria, a major public health issue in Africa in general and -Saharan Africa in particularly, Nigeria inclusive. Being pregnant or under-aged has been identified as significant susceptibility factors for malaria, conversely some factors have also been identified as being able to confer some form of protection against the severity of malaria. One of such factors is the possession of an abnormal haemoglobin, either in the homozygous or heterozygous form. This study aimed to investigate this claim using subjects accessing care at a tertiary health facility in southwest, Nigeria. The study used convenience and consecutive sampling design to enroll 100 consenting subjects aged 1-45 years A total of one hundred (100) blood samples of malaria infected patients were collected from various age groups and both sexes. Electrophoresis was used to determine the subjects’ haemoglobin genoptype and AA, AS, AC, SC, SS were used as control. Data generated were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. The frequency of the Hb genotypes of the subjects were; 70, AA; 17, AS; 5, SS; 5, AC and 3, SC. A significant difference was observed between male and female patients infected with malaria parasite (p>0.05). It was also observed that children had higher prevalence of malaria infection than adults. This study found increased malaria parasitaemia in Hb AA while Hb AS, SS, AC shows significant reduction in malaria parasitaemia.