Original Research Article

Prevalence of Malaria among COVID-19 Patients accessing Healthcare in Selected Facilities in Rivers State Nigeria

Evelyn Orevaoghene Onosakponome^1*, Rhoda Nwalozie², Jonathan Nyebuchi², Clement Ugochukwu Nyenke¹

¹Department of Medical Laboratory Science, PAMO University of Medical Sciences, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
²Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author's E-mail: eonosakponome@pums.edu.ng

Received: 17 June 2022  I  Accepted: 21 July 2022  I  Published: 29 July 2022  I  Article ID: MRJBM22012
Copyright © 2022 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.

Abstract

Nigeria is a malaria endemic country with huge disease burden and lately has suffered the devastating effect of the novel corona viral disease with obvious mortality rate and comorbid conditions. The cross sectional hospital based study, investigated the prevalence of malaria among 400COVID-19 patients accessing Healthcare in Selected Facilities in Rivers State Nigeria. Ethical approvals were obtained from appropriate bodies and unit heads of laboratories and health facilities in addition to informed and written consent from study participants based on eligibility criteria. The investigation of malaria parasitaemia in this study was relative to the clinical manifestations of various symptoms such as fever, difficulty in breathing, cough/sneezing, headache, loss of smell/taste, running nose and sore throat. Malaria count was performed to semi quantitatively examined accordingly using Chessbrough after thick and thin film smear preparations and Romanoskwy staining technique. Results showed varying degrees (low, moderate and high) of malaria prevalence among COVID-19 study participants in relation to symptoms. The least rate was observed as 3.0% categorized as low in relation to fever while symptom accompanied with difficulty in breathing had the highest prevalence of malaria parasitaemia with high severity (62.5%) among study participants presented with this symptom despite the fact that, fewer number of patients (N=24) experienced this symptom of difficulty in breathing compared to the most common symptom of loss of smell/taste (N= 138), only 19.5% of these patients reported high malaria parasitaemia. Most symptoms reported in this study are common for both malaria parasitaemia infection and COVID-19 therefore, to prevent misdiagnosis and misclassification, differential diagnosis is suggested in addition to integrating malaria test as part of the routine screening among COVID-19 case management for best outcome. The deterred safety prevention and control measures for malaria should be reconsidered especially in malaria endemic regions.

Keywords: COVID-19 Patients, Facilities, Healthcare, Malaria, Nigeria, Rivers State