EVALUATION OF Plasmodium falciparum PARASITAEMIA AND ASSOCIATED INFLAMMATORY CYTOKINES AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN IN GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Either the balance between or absolute levels of inflammatory cytokines may be important in malaria presentation and its outcome. In malaria-infected pregnant women, the relationships between, plasma components, development of immunocompetence and disease severity is poorly understood. A total of 725 blood samples were collected from the study subject. Malaria examination was carried out using standard parasitology and haematological techniques and blood plasma was analysed for cytokines using Th1/Th2 human commercial standard enzyme linked immunosorbent assay kit (Elabscience®, USA). Pregnant women within the age of 21-25 years had the highest infection rate of 38.1% with the mean parasitaemia levels of 5872.29±3079.29 parasites/µl while those within the age group 46-50 years had the lowest infection rate of 0.43% with parasitaemia levels of 143.00±0.00 parasites/µl. The difference between infection and age range were not statistically significant (F = 691.90, P = 0.00), but there was a significant difference between age range and parasiteaemia (F = 0.435, P = 0.86). The concentrations of IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-10 were elevated among P. falciparum infected pregnant women than the un-infected counterparts (P > 0.05). The corelations between malaria parasitaemia and cytokine levels was very low. TNF-α (P = 0.398, r = -0.10), IFNγ (P = 0.837, r = 0.03), IL-10 (P = 0.704, r = 0.05) and IL-6 (P=0.595, r= -0.06). It is therefore concluded that, cytokines could be used as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for falciparum malaria progression or regression outcome.