Figure 2. Geometric mean parasite density (GMPD) of children with the different red cell polymorphisms.

Peripheral blood collected into EDTAK2 anticoagulant was used to prepare both thick and thin blood smears. Giemsa stained thick blood films were used for parasitological assessment and parasite densities were calculated using the absolute leucocytes counts. The parasitaemia per µl of blood was calculated by using the WHO (1996) formula:  = (Number of parasites counted/WBC counted) × absolute WBC count/µL of participant. Parasite densities are reported as geometric means for parasitaemic children with (A) showing haemoglobin variants, HbAA (n = 167), HbAS (n = 10), HbAC (n = 37) and (B) G6PD normal (n = 182), G6PD deficient (n = 37) genotypes. Thus bars represent GMPD of individual red cell polymorphisms and their 95% confidence intervals represented as line.