Three cases of vivax malaria showing atypical clinical course.
- Author:
Woo Chul JUNG
1
;
Weon Gyu KHO
;
Moon Won KANG
Author Information
1. Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
- Publication Type:Case Report
- Keywords:
Plasmodium vivax;
Malaria;
Atypical clinical course
- MeSH:
Fever;
Humans;
Korea;
Malaria;
Malaria, Vivax*;
Parasitemia;
Plasmodium vivax;
Recurrence;
World Health Organization
- From:Korean Journal of Infectious Diseases
2000;32(2):158-163
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
Vivax malaria has been endemic in Korea since the 15th century. In the 1960s a Malaria Eradication Project was introduced by the Korean government in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1979, WHO declared Korea a malaria-free area. Thereafter, any cases of malaria in Korea were imported cases. In 1993 a case of malaria, that was not imported, was identified. From then, malaria cases have increased exponentially and have tended to expand toward souther areas of Korea. We experienced three cases showing atypical clinical course of vivax malaria. In the first case, the patient had a spike of fever after the completion of standard chloroquine-primaquine therapy. He revealed the recrudescence of vivax malaria. The second one was asymptomatic parasitemia. The patient had no complaint for the prolonged period despite low level of parasitemia. The third patient was natural healing or vivax malaria with a relative long incubation period. Therefore we report these atypical cases with review.
