ABSTRACT

The study was aimed at evaluating the impact of serum selenium deficiency and malaria parasite presence among pregnant women. Blood samples were collected from a random section of 36 pregnant women attending ante-natal care; 20 from the semi-urban health centre and 16 from the rural health centre of Ikwuano L.G.A. of Abia State. Serum for the samples collected were assayed for selenium and malaria parasite (P falciparum). Results were analyzed statistically using SPSS version 22; descriptive analysis as well as mean, range, standard error, standard deviation, percentages, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, etc were all calculated. 36.11% (13 out of 36) of the samples had HB 11.0-12.0ug/dl which is the normal range of haemoglobin HB level, 52.78% (19 out of3 6) had Hb <11 ug/di while 61.11% (22 out of 36) had HB 11. Oug/di and 11.11% had HB slightly above the normal range. The mean difference between and among the different age groups were determined using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)and showed significance were accepted at (p<O.05) differences in the mean serum selenium age range comparisons between semi urban (15-23yr5) and semi urban (32-40yr5), rural (15-23yrs) and rural (24-31 yrs), rural (24-31 yrs) and semi urban (32-40yrs) , semi urban (32-40yrs) and the semi urban (15-23yrs) , semi urban (32-40yrs) and rural (32-40yrs) , rural (32-40yrs) and semi urban (32-40yrs) .One notable thing about malaria in the study is that all the pregnant women with moderate anemia all have positive result in their malaria test so malaria played a role in the prevalence of anemia among the pregnant women. Also it was noticed that the serum selenium concentration of 83.33% of all the pregnant women fall beyond the normal range(0.44- 0.90g/dl),while 16.67% fall within the normal range.