Incidence of Typhoid Fever and Determination of Sialic Acid in Serum of the Patients at Nigerian Airforce Hospital Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Typhoid fever remains a significant public health concern in many regions of the world. Over-dependence on clinical presentation and/or the widal agglutination test for the diagnosis of typhoid fever in developing countries can lead to antibiotic abuse. The study aimed to determine sialic acid from the plasma of patients with typhoid fever as alternative for Widal test in diagnosis of typhoid fever. Blood specimens were collected from thirty five (35) adult female and male patients attending the Nigerian Airforce Hospital. The specimens were subjected to typhoid fever diagnosis and sialic acid assay. Incidence of typhoid fever among the patients was determined. Also level of sialic acid was determined among typhoid fever positive and negative patients. Out of the total specimens, 24(68.57%) were found to be infected with Salmonella typhi and are set to be the positive group of the study, while 11 (31.43%) patients were not infected with the disease . Incidence of the disease was higher among patients of 17-23 years. Findings of the study shows that there is no significant difference between sialic level of male and female patients but there is a significant difference between the sialic level of Salmonella typhi positive and Salmonella typhi negative patients. This differences in the level of sialic acid revealed that the infection by Salmonella typhi caused increase in the level of total sialic acid (TSA) level in the serum and therefore could be as a diagnostic procedure to determine Salmonella typhi infection.