Mediterranean Journal of Hematology and Infectious Diseases

The first symptoms of malaria, common to all the different malaria species, are nonspecific and mimic a flu-like syndrome. Although fever represents the cardinal feature, clinical findings in malaria are extremely diverse and may range in severity from mil complications leading to death, particularly in falciparum malaria. As the progression to these complications can be rapid, any malaria patient must be assessed and treated rapidly, and frequent observations are needed to look for ear In fact, severe malaria is a life threatening but treatable disease. The protean and nonspecific clinical findings occurring in malaria (fever, malaise, headache, myalgias, jaundice and sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea) may lead physicians who see malaria infrequently to a wrong diagnosis, such as influenza (particularly during the seasonal epidemic flu), dengue, gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, viral hepatitis, encephalitis. Physicia malaria is not a clinical diagnosis but must be diagnosed, or excluded, by performing microscopic examination of blood films. Prompt diagnosis and appropriate treatment are then crucial to prevent morbidity and fatal outcomes. Altho of severe malaria and death, increasing evidence has recently emerged that Plasmodium knowlesi can also be severe and even fatal. Introduction. Malaria is usually transmitted by the bite of an infected female anopheline mosquito, although blood-borne transmission (blood or blood products transfusion, transplantation, needle among intravenous drug addicts, accidental nosocomial transmission) or congenital transmission may occur. In the case of mosquito-borne transmission, sporozoites, the infective plasmodial stage injected www.mjhid.org ISSN 2035-3006