Malaria Endemicity Offers Protection Against Coronavirus 2/Covid 19 Pandemic: Why Most African Countries - Nigeria May Not Record Much Fatality
Okonkwo Victor Okechukwu
Department of Zoology NnamdiAzikiwe University Awka, Anambra State Nigeria
Ikeh Ifeanyi Mulumba
Department of Zoology NnamdiAzikiwe University Awka, Anambra State Nigeria
okaka Christopher Ehighaukhuo
Department of Animal and Environmental Biology University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
Keywords: Malaria, Protection, Coronavirus, Pandemic, Africa
Abstract
The current article observed and analyzed malaria endemicity as a protective factor against the spread of coronavirus pandemic on African continent with special focus to Nigeria based on the fact sheet provided by World Health Organization (WHO) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) agencies across the world and Africa. From the analysis of the distribution of data, the endemicity of malaria offer protection to some population from COVID-19 outbreak in most African countries. This paper also provided important insight to the epidemiological pattern of COVID-19 pandemic in most African countries where malaria infection is endemic compared to Asia, Europe and America where malaria incidence are rarely found. Moreover, the molecular and genetic variations associated with malaria especially the Angiotensin converting enzyme II(ACE2) also play a protective role against coronavirus infection. Evidently the recovered patients in Nigeria and some other African Countries from coronavirus infection were mostly treated with anti-malaria drugs such as Chloroquine, Chloroquine derivatives, and Artemisia anuua derivatives drugs. This is a strong indication that the mechanism of action of these anti-malaria drugs performing the antiviral functions, suggest their similarity in molecular and genomic interaction why endemicity of malaria infection offers protection against coronavirus infection. This paper provides a better knowledge about the slowly spreading pattern of COVID – 19infections with insignificant fatality ratio in most African Countries especially Nigeria