Malaria and Typhoid Fever Coinfection among Febrile Patients Attending Kafin-Maiyaki Primary Health Centre

Abstract

Study’s Novelty/Excerpt This study investigates the burden and co-existence of malaria and typhoid fever among febrile patients, providing a rare examination of these symptomatically similar but aetiologically distinct diseases in a single patient cohort. The novelty of the research lies in its detailed analysis of co-infection rates across different age groups and genders, highlighting significant age-related disparities and suggesting the higher vulnerability of older patients. These findings underscore the importance of concurrent screening for malaria and typhoid fever in febrile patients, offering critical insights for improving diagnostic and treatment strategies in the study area. Full Abstract Malaria and typhoid fever are two symptomatically similar but aetiologically dissimilar diseases: mala ria is caused by parasitic agents from Plasmodium species; ty phoid fever, on the other hand, is caused by Salmonella typhi. They both have no gender distinction in terms of their effect, but malaria appears to be more severe among children. The study aimed to determine the burden of these two diseases among febrile patients in the study area by collecting four (4) mL of blood from each participant, 2 mL of which were dispensed into EDTA bottles for use to detect microscopic parasites. The harvested serum from the remainder was used for the Widal agglutination test to detect the presence of antibodies to Salmonella species. Based on the results, malaria and typhoid fever co-existence was found to be 20.9%. The findings with respect to age group revealed that patients >60 years had a higher coinfection rate of 75% while the 1-12 years age group had the least coinfection (10.6%). There was a significant association between coinfection and age groups (p = 0.019). With respect to gender, females were more prone to be co-infected (53.6%) compared to their male counterparts (46.4%) out of the total positive cases (28) obtained, but the observed difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.016). We therefore recommend concurrent screening of these diseases in all febrile cases in the study area.