DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i12.039

Pages: 4384-4387

The study was done to determine the iron status of the malnourished infants in Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria. The study in children Emergency Unit of Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia. A total of fifty subjects (50) were recruited for the study. Twenty (20) subjects were malnourished infants aged 1-12 months (10 males, 10 females) and thirty (30) apparently healthy infants (15 males, 15 females).2.5ml of venous blood was drawn into Iron free clean plain tubes and the serum separated for the estimation of Iron in the samples. Iron was measured spectrophotometrically by Ferrozine method using TECO Diagnostics IRON/TIBC Reagents. The results were analysed using t-test and level of significance set at p<0.05.The study showed significant increase (p<0.05) is serum iron of malnourished infants (80.0±7.0µg/dl) compared to control subjects (42.5±3.6 µg/dl) as well as in the %TSA (25.4±5.6%) and (12.2±3.2%) respectively and no significant difference (p>0.05) in TIBC. This could be related to iron therapy on the malnourished infants in the hospital to avert the danger of iron anaemia.