Abstract:
Background: - Malaria and Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are the two most common infectious diseases with enormous public health
consequences in sub-Saharan Africa and worldwide. Co-infection with malaria and HIV/AIDS
worsens the consequences and increases the severity and mortality rates of both diseases. One of
the causes of the increased mortality rate in individuals co-infected with malaria and HIV/AIDS
is the ability of these diseases to alter the hematological profiles of co-infected people. A better
understanding of alterations in hematological profiles of HIV-malaria co-infected patients could
help in the diagnosis and prompt treatment of malaria among HIV-infected patients and to
develop targeted prevention and control strategies as well.
Objective : - To determine the selected hematological profiles of HIV-malaria parasites co-
infected adult individuals on Highly-Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy in Bonga Gebretsadik
Shawo General Hospital, June 13- November 3 /2022 G.C.
Method : Hospital based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted involving a total of
196 HIV positive patients (98 HIV infected and 98 HIV-malaria co-infected) in Bonga General
Hospital. Five ml of venous blood was collected and parasite detection, parasite density
estimation, viral load and complete blood count were performed. The socio-demographic data
were collected using structured questionnaire and clinical data were collected through blood
film examination, Complete blood count (CBC) results from the Siemens (ADVIA 560, UK) CBC
analyzer machine and viral load results sent from Jimma University Medical Center and entered
into Epi-data 3.1. Then the data generated was exported into SPSS V-25 and STATA V-16 and
analyzed. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test and spearman’s correlation tests were
performed using SPSS V-25 and STATA V-16. P value of <0.05 was set as a cutoff point of
significance.
Results: A total of 196 adult people living with HIV were included in the study. The mean values
of hematological profiles were found to be lower in HIV-malaria co-infected than in HIV mono-
infected individuals with total white blood cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocyte, basophils,
red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, mean cell volume, mean cell hemoglobin concentration
and platelets having the mean (+SD) of 4.52(+1.43), 2.27(+1.04), 1.42(+0.58), 0.43(+0.31),
0.07(+0.12), 3.7(+1.02), 10.53(+2.95), 30.1(+8. 35), 77.5(+7.15), 34.5(+3.74), 15.75(+6.00),
221.7 (+119.9) respectively in co-infected individuals. Parasite density and viral load also
negatively correlated to hematological profiles in co-infected groups.
Conclusions and recommendations : Our findings showed that the mean values of
hematological profiles are significantly lower in co-infected than the HIV infected participants.
But further studies with larger sample size from other settings are required to substantiate the
findings in the future
