Impact of malaria on haematological parameters of urban, peri-urban and rural residents in the Ashanti region of Ghana: a cross-sectional study

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Background: We aimed at investigating the impact of malaria on the haematological parameters of residents from different demographic settlements in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Malaria parasites trigger changes in certain haematological parameters, which may result in a number of clinical manifestations. Differences in demographic settlements, such as rural, peri-urban and urban settlements may also influence these changes, but this has not been extensively studied in Ghana. Methods: We conducted a hospital-based, cross-sectional study from January to December 2018 in three different settlements. A total of 598 participants were recruited. Blood smears were examined to detect and quantify malaria parasitaemia, while haematological parameters were measured using a haematology analyser. Results: Participants from the rural settlement had the highest malaria prevalence (21.3%) compared to the urban (11.8%) and peri-urban areas (13.3%); however, the peri-urban area had the highest median parasite density (568; IQR=190.0-1312.0). Age was significantly associated with the odds of malaria positivity (OR: 0.97; CI:0.96 — 0.99). When haematological parameters of the malaria-infected study participants were compared to the parameters of uninfected participants, red blood cell count (p=0.017), haemoglobin (p=0.0165), haematocrit (p=0.0015), mean corpuscular volume (p=0.0014), plateletcrit (p<0.0001) and platelet count (p<0.0001) were all significantly lower in the malaria infected group. In addition to age, haemoglobin and plateletcrit levels were also inversely correlated with the odds of testing positive for malaria, suggesting that children who were anaemic and/or thrombocytopaenic were likely to be infected. After fitting the data to a logistic regression model comprising the three variables, the model correctly categorised 78% of uninfected study participants, but only 50% of the malaria-positive participants. Conclusions: Study participants who were positive for malaria were younger and had low haemoglobin and plateletcrit levels compared to uninfected individuals. Further studies are needed to more precisely elucidate the relationship between malaria infection,demographic and haematological parameters.

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