Journal of Preventive Medicine & Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Background: Anaemia is a critical public health issue affecting over one-quarter of the world’s population in all income’s countries. In Côte d'Ivoire, malaria kills four people every day including three children under the age of five in 2022. This research study aims to highlight the type of anaemia observed in twin pairs under 7 years of age infected with malaria in the western region of Côte d’Ivoire, in order to raise public awareness and recommend a sound public health strategy of care to alleviate this scourging problem.

Methods: A cohort of 65 male and female children which included 13 twin pairs aged 3 months to 6 years were recruited from March 2020 to May 2021 in 8 villages in the Tonkpi Region. The children provided ve nous blood samples for the diagnosis and characterization of anaemia (full blood count), while a Giemsa staining (GS) (thick and thin smears) and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) were used for the diagnosis of ma laria. Univariate analysis (Chi-2 test (χ2) and P: (Probability) were used for comparison between groups. Significant test was considered at a threshold of 0.05.

Results: Of the 65 participants who completed the study, 34 (52.3% were female and 31 (47.7%) were male. Thirteen amongst them were a set of pair twins made of five sets of homozygotes and eight heterozygotes (10(38.5%) male and 16(61.5%) female). The Prevalence of the overall anaemia was 63.1% including 34.1% twins distributed as 46.4% mild, 51.2% moderate and 2.4% severe anaemia. The characterization of anae mia revealed that Normochromic microcytic anaemia was the predominant type (23.1%) followed by hy pochromic microcytic anaemia (19,2%) in the twins. The prevalence of malaria was 62.2% and 75.4% based on GS and RDTs respectively in the overall population, with38.5% on GS and 80.8% on RDTs amongst the twins. The closed relation between Plasmodium infection and anaemia led to P. falciparum alone causing 57.1% of mild, 42.9% of moderate, and no severe case in the twin children.

Conclusion: Malaria infection was very prevalent among female (62.5%) aged [0-59M] and male (60.0%) aged ]59 M - 6Y] twins’ children. P. plasmodium was the most prevalent malaria parasites (90%) in both sex accounting for the high prevalence of mild and moderate normochromic microcytic anaemia (NMA) ob served in the twins aged ]59M - 6Y] and [0-59M] Espectively in the western region of Côte d’Ivoire.