Prevalence and co-infection of Malaria and Typhoid in the local population of Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract

Malaria and typhoid fever are among the major infectious diseases which impose significant health and socioeconomic burden on affected populations. Further, co-infection and resembling symptomatology in both infections, mostly leads to misdiagnosis and mistreatment. So co-infection of malaria and typhoid fever is becoming a major issue in tropical and subtropical countries. The current study was planned to explore the rate of co-infection of malaria and typhoid fever to show the diagnostic challenges and people health implications in the local population of FaisalabadPakistan. For this purpose, 144 samples (n=144) were collected from suspected subjects both male (n=74) and female (n=70) (comprises of three age group ranges viz >01-10, 11-20 and above 20 years old) of typhoid fever and malaria from October to December 2017 at Children Hospital, Faisalabad-Pakistan. Thick smear as a gold standard technique for malaria diagnosis and Widal agglutination technique for typhoid diagnosis were used. Results revealed that the prevalence of co-infection in selected subjects was 6.3% (n=9) with higher prevalence in female subjects (7.1%) as compared to males (5.4%). Further, it was also reported that age groups >01-10 years old, 11-20 years old and 21-above years old have6.6 % (n=75), 5.7 % (n=35) and 5.8% (n=34), coinfection prevalence respectively. In the present study, it could be concluded that although the prevalence of co-infection of malaria and typhoid fever in the studied population was possible but sensitivity of diagnostic tools was limited, so more reliable, specific and sensitive diagnostic tools are required to report confidently more precise correlation of these infectious diseases.