Transfusional Malaria and Associated Factors at the National Blood Transfusion Center of Niamey-Niger

Abstract

Summary. Problem. Transfusional malaria is an accidental transmission of Plasmodium via a blood transfusion. Its magnitude is underestimated and very little data on the assessment of this risk are available in Niger. Objective. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of plasmodial infection of blood bags at the National Blood Transfusion Center of Niamey (NBTC). Methodology. A cross-sectional study to diagnose Plasmodium infection by microscopy and Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) was carried out during the rainy season (September to November 2015). Blood grouping was performed by the BETH-VINCENT technique. Results. One thousand three hundred and fifty-seven (1357) blood bags were collected. One hundred and fifty-seven (11.6%) of the donors were infected with Plasmodium by microscopy and 2.4% (9/369) by rapid diagnostic test. All infections were with P. falciparum (100%). The mean parasite density was 197 parasites/μL (SD=281; [80: 2000]). There were no significant differences in infection prevalence between the ABO blood groups (p=0.3) or the rhesus positivity (p=08). There is also no significant difference in temporal (p=0.1) and spatial (p=0.6) distribution. Conclusion. The transmission of transfusional malaria during the rainy season is a fact in Niger. Such risks were independent of the ABO blood type and positivity for the rhesus antigen. Pretransfusion diagnosis or posttransfusion therapy should be instituted to prevent it.

Association between Rhesus Blood Groups and Malaria Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Among these studies, a significantly lower proportion of malaria among Rh+ individuals was reported by two studies [39,44]. Three studies reported a lower proportion of malaria among Rh+ individuals than in Rh− individuals, though no statistical significance [37,45,48].…”

“…Based on the STROBE criteria, two-thirds of studies (75%) were of moderate quality [22,24,[26][27][28][29][30][31][33][34][35][36][38][39][40][41]43,[45][46][47][48]50,[52][53][54][55]. Meanwhile, eight studies were of high quality (22.2%) [23,25,31,37,42,44,51,56], and one was of low quality (2.78%) [49] (Table S3). The systematic review included all studies, and the varied reporting quality was addressed in the metaregression analysis to investigate whether the different reporting qualities of the included studies affected the combined outcome.…”

“…The remaining seven studies reported a higher proportion of malaria in Rh+ individuals than in Rh− individuals, though no statistical significance or statistical analysis has been performed [21,32,38,43,50,53,54]. Sixteen studies (44.4%) showed a lower proportion of malaria in Rh+ individuals than in Rh− individuals [23,24,26,[29][30][31]34,37,39,40,44,45,47,48,52,55]. Among these studies, a significantly lower proportion of malaria among Rh+ individuals was reported by two studies [39,44].…”

“…Thirty-two studies with a study population of 1,007,763 reported the quantitative number of participants with malaria infection and Rh blood groups, which were included in the meta-analysis of the pooled log OR [21,[23][24][25][26][27][29][30][31][32][33][34][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. Results of individual studies showed increased odds of having malaria among Rh+ individuals in six studies [25,27,32,42,51,53].…”

“…Meanwhile, there were decreased odds of having malaria among Rh+ individuals in two studies [29,47]. In 28 studies [21][22][23][24]26,28,30,31,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][43][44][45][46][48][49][50]52,[54][55][56], there was no difference in the odds of having malaria between patients with Rh positivity and Rh negativity. Overall, the meta-analysis found no difference in the odds of having malaria between the Rh+ and Rh− patients (p = 0.85, pooled log OR: 0.02, 95% CI: −0.20-0.25, I 2 : 65.12%, 32 studies, Figure 2).…”