Imported Malaria in the Material of the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine: A Review of 82 Patients in the Years 2002–2014

Malaria is, along with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, one of the three most dangerous infectious diseases in the world. In the absence of native cases since 1963, malaria has remained in Poland an exclusively imported disease, mainly occurring in people travelling to tropical and subtropical areas for professional reasons. The aim of this study was the epidemiological and clinical analysis of 82 patients admitted to the University Center for Maritime and Tropical Medicine (UCMTM), Gdynia, Poland, with a diagnosis of malaria between 2002 and 2014. The "typical" patient with malaria was male, middle-aged, returned from Africa within the preceding 4 weeks, had not used appropriate chemoprophylaxis, and had not applied nonpharmacological methods of prophylaxis, except for window insect screens. P. falciparum was the most frequent species. The most common symptoms included fever, shivers and intensive sweating, thrombocytopenia, elevated creatinine, LDH, D-dimers and CRP, hepatomegaly, and splenomegaly. Within the analyzed group, severe malaria according to WHO standards was diagnosed in 20.7% of patients. Our report presents analysis of the largest series of patients treated for imported malaria in Poland.