Clinical laboratory reference values from North American and European populations are currently used in most Africans countries due to the absence of locally derived reference ranges, despite previous studies reporting significant differences between populations. Our aim was to define reference ranges for both genders in 18 to 24 year-old Mozambicans in preparation for clinical vaccine trials.
A cross-sectional study including volunteers males and females between 18 and 24 years was performedat a youth clinic in Maputo, Mozambique. All volunteers were clinically healthy and human immunodeficiency virus, Hepatitis B virus and syphilis negative. Ranges were compared with those reported based on populations in other African countries and the US. The immunology ranges were comparable to those reported for the US and western Kenya.
Hematologic values differed from the US values but were similar to reports of populations in western Kenya and Uganda. The lower and upper limits of the ranges for hemoglobin, hematocrit, red blood cells, white blood cells and lymphocytes were somewhat lower than those from these African countries. The chemistry values were comparable to US values, with few exceptions. This study is the first to determine normal laboratory parameters in Mozambique. Our results underscore the necessity of establishing region-specific clinical reference ranges for proper patient management and safe conduct of clinical trials.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Routine health assessment and management of clinical trials relies on accurate laboratory references.
