Authors
O Akanbi1; 1 Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria Discussion
Malaria is a common disease among pregnant women and children. The pathological effect of malaria has been attributed to changes in the lipid profile during the infection. This work studied the role of malaria infection on the lipid profile in children. Two hundred and forty children age range 0-5 years were enrolled for this study; 170 were malaria positive while 70 were malaria negative (Control). Those who were malaria positive were grouped into two based on the level of parasitaemia. Those who had more than 100,000 parasitaemia were grouped as severe infection, while those who had less than 100,000 parasitaemia were grouped under mild infection. Level of high density lipoprotein (HDL) was significantly higher (P<0.05) in the control than in the severe and mild groups, while the HDL level was not significantly higher in the mild group than in the severe group. There was a significant increase (P< 0.05) in the total protein in the control and mild group than in the severe group. The low density lipoprotein, total cholesterol and triglyceride levels were not significantly reduced in the control and mild group when compared with the severe group. This study shows that children who belong to severe group may likely to have serious complication and cardiovascular problem during malaria infection. 
