Lubna Khatoon, Yar Muhammad Khan, Salman Akbar Malik.
Slide Positivity Rate of Malaria and its Association with Blood Chemistry in Hospitalized Adults at Bannu, Pakistan.
Infect Dis J Jan ;22(1):522-4.

Objective: To assess the slide positivity rate of malaria and to evaluate its association with blood chemistry in adult patients admitted at a hospital in Bannu, Pakistan. Methods: Blood samples from 3500 patients who presented to a hospital in Bannu for suspected malaria were collected between August to September 2007. The blood films of these patients were examined by Giemsa staining. Biochemical analysis (serum glucose, bilirubin, ALT, AS, creatinine) was performed on all samples that tested positive for malaria and compared to 70 randomly selected samples that were negative for malaria Results: The slide positivity rate for malaria was 22% (767/3500) for all malarial species. Among them 55 (7.2%) were P. falciparum, while 712 (92.8%) were P. vivax. The biochemical features of the 767 malaria positive patients were compared to randomly selected 70 patients to determine the association of malaria with blood biochemistry. Patients with P. vivax had higher mean serum creatinine (0.50 vs. 1.07; p<0.01) and bilirubin levels.( 0.567mg/dl versus 3.07 ; p <0.01). Similarly patients with P. falciparum also had higher mean levels for creatinine and bilirubin. No significant difference was observed in AST, ALT and glucose concentration amongst malaria positive and negative subjects for either vivax or falciparum. Conclusion: There is a very high burden of malaria in Bannu district. Both P. vivax and P. falciparum infections are associated with an increase in mean bilirubin and creatinine levels.

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