Prevalence of multi drug resistance malaria among patients aged 0 – 14 years attending murtala muhammad specialist hospital Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

The Plasmodium falciparum multidrug resistance gene 1 (pfmdr1) is a molecular marker of parasite susceptibility to anti-malarial drugs. This study aimed to evaluate multidrug resistance resistance gene 1 (MDR1) mutation in 0-14years old malaria patients attending Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, Kano, Nigeria. Samples from 100 children with malaria were examined to confirm the malaria parasite density and further genotyped via BigDye (v3.1) terminator cycle sequencing for the presence of two SNPs in pfmdr1on samples with high and moderate parasite densities. All data were analyzed using Pearson Chi square and Fisher’s exact (FE) tests. Of the 100 patients, 57% had low (+) malaria parasite density, 28% had moderate (++) and 15% had high (+++) malaria parasite densities of the 100 samples, 31 samples were successfully amplified and analyzed for the pfmdr1 gene located at codon 86 with amplicon size of 534bp while only 7 samples were successfully amplified for the pfmdr1 gene located at codon 1246.Pfmdr1-N86Y mutation was detected in 1 (3.2%) sample. In addition, only 1 (3.2%) sample with allelic change at 1246Y was detected in mutant pfmdr1gene. The result also showed that sex had no significant association (P = 0.4237) with pfmdr1SNP mutation. However, significant association (P = 0.0043) between the age groups (1 month to 14 years) represented in the study and pfmdr1mutation. The present study suggests that strains of P. falciparum with reduced sensitivity to the artemisinin component of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) exist in Kano state, northern Nigeria. Methods: sample Collection Finger prick filter paper blood samples were collected from patients below the age of 5 years. However, 2 mL of venous blood was drawn using sterile syringe and needle from children aged 6 and 14 years. Safety procedures were adopted in the collection of blood samples by swabbing the area to be sampled with disinfectant and allowing it to dry before collection.