The Biobrio 12(1 & 2), 2025

Incidences of asymptomatic Plasmodium vivax infection and its association with anaemia during pregnancy in malaria endemic population of Hazaribag, Jharkhand, India

Abhishek Mitra, Hasib Ansari, Birendra Kumar Gupta, Ajay Kumar Sharma & Mohammad Sohail

ABSTRACT:

The escalating burden of malaria in pregnancy (MiP) is of public health concern across the globe, in view of the pathogenesis, epidemiology, clinical sequelae, prevention and treatment of malaria; all have unique features during pregnancy. The combinatorial impact of malaria in pregnancy includes effect of parasitic infection, anaemia, abortions, low birth weight, still births, and maternal mortality further perplexed the situation of prompt diagnosis, treatment and preventive strategies. This prompted us to estimate the population at risk of MIP in Hazaribag, Jharkhand, a malaria-endemic state in central-east India. Cross-sectional evaluation between September 2021 and December 2022 at antenatal clinics (ANC) and delivery units (DU) were performed at Sadar hospital, Hazaribag. Malaria was screened by Giemsa-stained blood smear and/or rapid diagnostic test using peripheral blood. Anaemia was defined as haemoglobin concentration. Pre-tested questionnaires were used to gather socio-demographic, clinical and obstetrical data. 1865 pregnant women were enrolled at the antenatal clinics and 934 at the delivery units. The prevalence of malaria during pregnancy was 4.8% and 3.7% at ANC and DU, and there were 11.4% malaria in women without pregnancy. Interestingly, majority (73%) were infected with P.vivax, and over 67% of the pregnant women were asymptomatic malaria. Anaemia was prevalent in 78% of ANC attendee as compared to 67% in DU, whereas, severe anaemia was 11.8% as compared to 6.3%. Anaemia was significantly associated with malaria; however, severe anaemia was more common among women with parasitaemia. In multivariate analyses, asymptomatic malaria increased over four times the likelihood of having anaemia. In view of sizable prevalence of malaria and in pregnancy with significantly associated anaemia and parasitemia suggests early diagnosis regardless of symptoms and comprehensive drug regime should be offered to pregnant women in association with existing measures in clinical spectrum of infection, delivery and its outcome.

Keywords:    

MIP, Asymptomatic, P.vivax, Jharkhand, Anaemia

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