Co-existence of Malaria and Dengue: An Incidental Observation

Abstract

Introduction: Malaria and dengue are two most important arthropod borne diseases responsible for high morbidity and mortality across the globe. Both these communicable diseases have been a major threat to the public health not only in India but also in other tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Aim: To study the prevalence of Dengue and Malaria along with the cases of co-infection among the patients visiting a tertiary care hospital located in central India. Materials and Methods: The present prospective study was conducted for a period of two years from January 2019 to December 2020, in the serology section of the Department of Microbiology of a teaching tertiary care hospital. Three to five millilitres (mL) of venous blood samples from 1519 patients were tested for both dengue (NS1 antigen, IgM and IgG antibodies) by Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) method and malaria peripheral smear and antigen by immunochromatographic method. All demographic parameters were simultaneously analysed. Statistical analysis was performed with the help of Chi-square test. Results: Out of 1519 blood samples tested, 267 (17.5%) samples were positive for dengue and 6 (0.39%) samples were positive for malaria. No case of co-infection was detected. Maximum dengue cases were detected during post monsoon period while malaria cases were detected in monsoon and post monsoon period. Among the various dengue positive cases, 185 (69.2%) patients were diagnosed with recent primary infection while 20 (7.49%) patients had primary infection. Conclusion: The present study concluded that seroprevalence of dengue was high in our geographical region with malaria being negligible. Present study incidentally recorded the fact that the two diseases may coexist in an individual but both the vectors rarely share the same geographical site.

Keywords

• co-infection
• dengue virus
• enzyme linked immunosorbent assay
• malaria parasite
• seroprevalence