Yitayih Wondimeneh, Getachew Ferede, Asmamaw Atnafu and Dagnachew Muluye
Malaria and HIV are the two most important infectious diseases and have similar global distributions, with the majority of those infected individuals lived in countries with constrained resources like sub-Saharan Africa. In light of the epidemiological overlap and global importance of the two diseases, there is an urgent need for more research on a wide range of unanswered questions. This study is aimed to determine the prevalence of malaria among HIV positive individuals and effect of co-infection on immune-hematological profiles. A retrospective study was conducted on HIV positive adult individuals who had complain of febrile illness and gave blood for blood film examination at Gondar University Hospital. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16 statistical package. Out of 377 patients who had acute febrile illness and presumed to have malaria and gave blood for blood film examination, 73 (19.4%) had confirmed malaria cases. High prevalence of plasmodium falciparum (72.6%) was detected compared to plasmodium vivax (27.4%). The mean CD4+ lymphocyte count of HIV-malaria co-infected patients was lower than HIV mono-infected patients. Similarly the mean hemoglobin value of HIV-malaria co-infected patients was lower than HIV mono-infected patients with P-value of 0.001. Nine (2.4%) of patients had sever anemia while 216 (57.3%) of patients had mild anemia. In multivariate analysis; sex (AOR = 2.6; 95% CI: 1.43- 4.83), CD4+ count (AOR = 2.3; 95% CI: 1.13-4.77) and hemoglobin level (AOR = 8.3; 95% CI: 1.86-37.29) were found to be independently associated with HIV-malaria co-infection. HIV-malaria co-infections are found to be higher. Intervention strategies should give emphasis for females and patients with low CD4+ lymphocyte count. Further risk factors are needed to be investigated. Follow up studies are also needed to explore more on coinfections of these diseases and their public health speculation.
