Serological Screening for Malaria and Typhoid Fever in Febrile Patients Attending National Hospital, Abuja

Abstract

A total of 300 blood samples were collected from patients for widal test into plain tubes and allowed to coagulate to get the serum. Blood samples for malaria investigation were collected in EDTA tubes, thick blood films were prepared and stained using field stain A and B and the Care Start Malaria HRP2 (Pf) was used for rapid qualitative detection of malaria. Overall, 40.67% of the total population were positive for malaria infection, 50% were positive for widal serological agglutination test for typhoid infection, the result indicates 27.33% co infection with malaria and typhoid fever among the patients. Salmonella species causing typhoid fever appear to be the most prevalent cause of febrile infection among the patients. Therefore, efforts should be made to find, more accurate, clinical and cultural methods of identifying and isolating Salmonella species in blood samples. In addition, proper laboratory tests should be carried out on samples collected from patients before the administration of drugs so as to avoid drug resistance.