In contrast to the gradual reduction in the number of locally transmitted malaria cases in China, the number of imported malaria cases has been increasing since 2008. Here, we report a case of a 39-year-old Chinese man who acquired Plasmodium ovale wallikeri infection while staying in Ghana, West Africa for 6 months in 2012. Microscopic examinations of Giemsa-stained thin and thick blood smears indicated Plasmodium vivax infection. However, the results of rapid diagnostic tests, which were conducted 3 times, were not in agreement with P. vivax. To further check the diagnosis, standard PCR analysis of the small-subunit rRNA gene was conducted, based on which a phylogeny tree was constructed. The results of gene sequencing indicated that this malaria is a variant of P. ovale (P. ovale wallikeri). The infection in this patient was not a new infection, but a relapse of the infection from the one that he had contracted in West Africa.
Adult ; Azure Stains ; Base Sequence ; China ; DNA, Protozoan/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Ghana ; Humans ; Malaria/*diagnosis/parasitology ; Male ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Phylogeny ; Plasmodium ovale/*classification/genetics/isolation & purification ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Recurrence ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Travel