Browsing by Author "Mukala,Joseph"

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    PublicationOpen Access
    Differential expression of plasma proteins in pregnant women exposed to Plasmodiumfalciparum Malaria
    (medRxiv, 2024-05-03) Kanoi,Bernard N; Waweru,Harrison; Kobia, Francis M; Mukala,Joseph; Kirira,Peter; Mogere,Dominic; Gallini Radiosa,; Åberg,Mikael; Vatish,Manu; Gitaka,Jesse; Kamali-Moghaddam,Masood
    In sub-Saharan Africa, pregnant women are at greater risk of malaria infection than non-pregnant adult women. The infection may lead to pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM) because of the sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes in the placental intervillous space. Although there are several tools for diagnosing malaria infection during pregnancy, including blood smear microscopic examination, rapid diagnostic tests, and PCR, there are no tools for detecting placental infection and, by extension, any dysfunction associated with PAM. Thus, PAM, specifically placental infection, can only be confirmed via postnatal placental histopathology. Therefore, there is an urgent need for specific serum biomarkers of PAM. Here, we used the high throughput proximity extension assay to screen plasma from malaria-exposed pregnant women for differentially expressed proteins that can predict PAM or adverse malaria outcomes. Such biomarkers may also elucidate the pathophysiology of PAM. We observed that the IgG Fc receptor IIb (Uniprot ID P31994) and HO-1 (P09601) are consistently highly expressed in malaria-positive samples compared to samples from malaria-negative pregnant women. On the contrary, NRTN (Q99748) and IL-20 (Q9NYY1) were differentially expressed in the malaria-negative women. IL-20 exhibited the highest discriminatory power (AUC = 0.815), indicating a strong association with malaria status. These proteins should be considered for further evaluation as biomarkers of malaria-induced placental dysfunction in pregnant women.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Predictors of birth weight in pregnant women with malaria: a prospective cohort facility-based study in Webuye-Kenya
    (BMC, 2024-03-08) Mukala,Joseph; Gitaka, Jesse; Waweru,Harrison; Kobia, Francis; Akisa, Violet; Kanoi,Bernard N.; Kirira, Peter; Mogere, Dominic
    In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria, which remains a major public health burden, has a prevalence of 9 to 28% and malaria in pregnancy is associated with severe adverse outcomes for the mother and her baby. Here, we sought to determine the predictors of birth weight in a cohort of 140 women with malaria in pregnancy, who were recruited at the Webuye County hospital in Western Kenya. All study participants underwent malaria diagnosis through microscopic examination of blood smear samples and were grouped into the malaria-positive and malaria-negative groups. Both groups were followed up beginning at the first antenatal visit (March 2022) until delivery (December 2022) and various data, including demographic, parity, gravidity, socioeconomic, maternal and fetal outcomes were collected. Data analyses were done using SPSS version 27. Chi-square and Fisher’s Exact tests were used for bivariate and relative risk analyses at a p-value of ≤0.05 (95%) confidence level. Most of the participants were aged 18–25 years, were primigravidas and married, had secondary school-level education, earned 20–30 thousand Kenya shillings, resided in rural areas, and were in the second trimester. There were 6 (4.6%) cases of low birth weight, 3 (4.5%) in the malaria-negative group and 3 (4.7%) in the malaria-positive group. During pregnancy, 41 (31.5%) were anaemic, 5 (3.8%) were HIV-positive, 5 (3.8%) had preeclampsia, and 2 (1.5%) had gestational diabetes. Our analyses show that confounding factors like anaemia, HIV, pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes did not influence birthweight (p ≥ 0.923). The malaria-positive and malaria-negative groups did not differ significantly with regard to the low birth weight (relative risk: 0.999, 95% confidence interval: 0.926–1.077). Marital status, gestational age, and area of residence were associated with malaria p ≤ 0.001, ≤ 0.001 and 0.028 respectively. In both groups, 124 of the 140 deliveries had normal birth weights and of these 63 (95.4%, n = 70) were in the malaria-negative group, whereas 61 (95.3%, n = 70) belonged to the malaria-positive group.