Prevalence of Malaria and Typhoid Fever in COVID-19 Patients in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

• ¹, Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Basic Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, Kaduna State University, Kaduna. , NG

Background: While taking great measures to prevent COVID-19, other potentially fatal and endemic diseases with similar clinical presentation, such as malaria, typhoid fever, HIV, tuberculosis, Lassa fever, among others should not be ignored. The study aimed to determine the incidence of malaria and typhoid fever co-infection in patients with COVID-19. 
Methods: Blood samples were collected from 770 participants who presented to the four screening sites between July and September 2020 at four of the Local Government Areas (LGA) within the Kaduna metropolis, for typhoid and malaria screening. Swab samples was taken from the nares, posterior pharynx, and tonsillar areas of eligible participants for COVID-19 molecular analysis by real-time PCR using QIAamp® Viral RNA Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany) for extraction and the SARS-CoV-2 DaAn Gene primer kits, for detection (Sun Yat-sen University, Ghangzhou, China). Data analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) version 23, by computing frequencies, proportions, and Chi square (?2). Statistical significance was determined using p-value <0.05. 
Results: The incidence of COVID-19 was 19.6%, malaria was 11.7%, and typhoid fever was  25.8%.  COVID-19/typhoid  co-infection  was  27.8%,  COVID-19/malaria  co- infection was 13.9%, and typhoid fever and malaria had a 2.9% co-infection rate. Conclusions:  With  acknowledging  the  potential  limitations  of  typhoid  serological tests, typhoid seropositivity and typhoid/COVID-19 co-infection rates were high in our population. Health-care packages that can be utilized simultaneously and targeted at screening for different febrile diseases, which may be co-existing with COVID-19 infection within the same patient should be explored in regions with high endemic of infectious diseases.