TITLE:
Prevalence of Plasmodium Parasitaemia among Blood Donors in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Kennedy T. Wariso, Ibinabo L. Oboro
KEYWORDS:
Transfusion Malaria, Blood Donors, Plasmodium falciparum
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Microbiology,
Vol.5 No.5,
May
18,
2015
ABSTRACT: Globally, efforts are being intensified to control and possibly eliminate
malaria. Transfusion transmitted Malaria unfortunately still occurs commonly
in malaria endemic countries such as Nigeria and may continue to hamper efforts
at control of malaria because blood donors are not routinely screened for
malaria before donation. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence
of Plasmodium Parasitaemia among
blood donors who presented in our institution between 2012 and 2014, using
light microscopy. Among the 200 donors studied, 135 (67.5%) were infected. Males
(97.5%) were statistically more than females (2.5%) but infection rate was
higher among the female population (100% as against 66.7% in males), with this
difference being statistically significant. All donors were infected with Plasmodium falciparum with the majority
of the donors having mild to moderate degrees of Parasitaemia. Women (52.5%)
and children (17.5%) formed the bulk of recipients for which blood was donated.
The high prevalence of Plasmodium Parasitaemia
among blood donors in Port Harcourt highlights the need for more efforts to be
targeted at preventing transmission of malaria via blood transfusion as this
will ultimately contribute to reduction in the incidence of malaria and indeed
its control/elimination in Nigeria.