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Sokoto Journal of Medical Laboratory Science (SJMLS) is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The journal holds the copyright for all the published articles. The signed copyright form submitted by the authors is a publication agreement between the journal and the authors.
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Alterations in some haematological parameters, ascorbic acid and pantothenic acid levels among pregnant women with plasmodium parasitaemia in Sokoto, Nigeria
Osaro Erhabor
Abstract
Malaria in pregnancy is a major contributor to adverse maternal and prenatal outcome. In hyper endemic areas like ours, it is a common cause of anaemia and the haematological abnormalities. This case-control study evaluated the full blood count, ascorbic acid and pantothenic acid level of sixty (60) malaria parasitized pregnant women. Participants were recruited from Antenatal Clinic of Specialist Hospital Sokoto. A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to obtain some socio-demographic characteristic and blood samples were collected and examine for malaria parasite, some haematological parameters (HCT, HGB, WBC, RBC and platelet count) were measured using the HA6000 auto-haematology analyzer (Perlong Medical Equipment Company). Ascorbic acid levels were assayed by a standard chemical method and pantothenic acid levels was analyzed using the ID-VIT pantothenic acid ELISA kit. Malaria parasitaemia and parasite load was confirmed by the examination of a Giemsa- stained thin blood film. Data generated was analyzed using SPSS 22.0 statistical package. A p- value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant in all statistical comparisons. The HCT, HGB RBC and Platelet counts of the parasitized subjects were significantly lower compared with the controls (p<0.05). Also, the ascorbic acid level of parasitized subjects was significantly lower compared to that of controls. There was a strong correlation between ascorbic acid and platelet count (r= 0.413 and p= 0.00). The mean parasite count among the parasitized subjects was 5.93 ± 2.72 × 103/ìL. Findings of this study has shown that malaria in pregnancy causes decrease in vitamin C and some of the haematological parameters. There is need to routinely monitor the vitamin C and full blood count should among parasitized pregnant women. We advocate that vitamin C and pantothenic acid be included in the guidelines of multivitamin supplementation particularly among plasmodium parasitized pregnant women.
