The Prevalence of Malaria in COVID-19 Patients among Blood Group Classification

Background: COVID‐19 is caused by SARS‐CoV‐2; it is considered a global tragedy that has astounded health care systems. Since the pandemic began, identifying the characteristics that might influence risk of infection and poor disease outcomes have been of paramount interest. Malaria is still a major global health burden particularly in the sub-Saharan Africa region with about 230 million cases annually. Blood group systems are genetically inherited features whose associations with some infectious diseases have long been debated.

Aim: This observational study was aimed at evaluating the prevalence of malaria in covid-19 patients based on blood group in Rivers State Isolation COVID-19 centers located in Rivers state Nigeria.

Methodology: 400 subjects participated and gave consent to be included in the study. Subjects were grouped ABO blood classification using commercially available anti-sera A, B. Microscopic method was used for the examination of malaria parasite and Giemsa staining technique.

Results: Out of the 400 samples, 327 subjects were infected with malaria parasite while 73 were uninfected. Furthermore,91 subjects were blood group A,85 subjects were blood group B,10 subjects were blood group AB and 214 subjects were blood group O. Additionally, the number of subjects infected with malaria among blood group A, AB, B and O are 71, 69, 7 and 180 respectively. Also the distribution of covid-19 among blood group A, B, AB and O is 78.02%, 81.17%, 70.00%, and 84.11% respectively. Furthermore, the prevalence of malaria and COVID -19 infection based on blood A, B, AB and O appeared to be 14.28%, 9.41%, 0.00% and 16.82% respectively.

Conclusion: This study has shown that most COVID-19 patients in Rivers state COVID-19 centers have blood groups O and A and had malaria co-infection. The prevalence of malaria with COVID-19 patients based on blood group was high amongst group O patient.