Variation in some Haematological Parameters in Patients with Plasmodiasis Attending Antenatal Clinic in Primary Health Care Centre, Ozuoba, Port Harcourt

Introdction: Haematological parameters are useful in making diagnosis of diseases and also help in the antenatal assessment of women during pregnancy. The physiological changes of pregnancy, due to the influence of hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone also affect haematological indices when compared with the non-pregnant state.

Aim: The study investigated haematological indices in pregnant women with plasmodiasis attending antenatal clinics in Primary health care centre Ozuoba, Port Harcourt.

Methodology: This was a cross sectional study, which recruited a total of one hundred (100) subjects, of which (40) were non parasitized pregnant women who served as control, while (60) were parasitized pregnant women who served as test. The samples were analyzed for haematological parameters using (Sysmex XP-300), while microscopy was used to investigated for the presence of malaria parasite.

Result: Comparing the hematological parameters of the study population at different level of plasmodiasis, showed that WBC, and Neutrophil were significant with p-Value of 0.001 and 0.0089 respectively at P<0.05.

The other haematological parameters such as, Red Blood Cell, Haemoglobin, Haematocrit, Mean Cell Volume, Mean Cell Haemoglobin, Mean CellHaemoglobin Concentration, Platelet, Plateletcrit, Neutrophils, lymphocyte, monocyte, eosinophil and basophil showed no statistical significant difference at p<0.05. While comparison of the haematological parameters of the study group according to parity showed that WBC count had statistical significance with a p-Value of 0.0035 at p<0.05.

Conclusion: Findings from this study has shown that there was statistical significant difference in the white blood cell count of malaria-parasitized pregnant subject. It was further revealed that there was no statistical significant difference in the other haematological parameters. The reason for the pattern of result obtained is that some of the pregnant women may have been receiving prophylactic antimalarial drugs before their recruitment, this will in turn minimize the impact of malaria infection on some haematological parameters.