OBJECTIVES To assess the burden of malaria on health services, describe the clinical presentation of severe malaria in children, and identify factors associated with mortality by means of a prospective observational study. SETTING Two public hospitals in Taiz (mountain hinterland) and Hodeidah (coastal plain), Yemen. PARTICIPANTS Children aged 6 months to 10 years. RESULTS Of 12,301 paedi...

Background Noncommunicable diseases and obesity are increasing in prevalence globally, also in populations at risk of malaria. We sought to investigate if comorbidity, in terms of chronic diseases and obesity, is associated with severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Methods We performed a retrospective observational study in adults (≥18 years of age) diagnosed with malaria in Sweden between J...

Patients presenting with severe falciparum malaria in a Bangladeshi tertiary hospital had higher total parasite burden, estimated by parasitemia and plasma PfHRP2, than uncomplicated malaria patients despite shorter fever duration. This suggests that higher parasite multiplication rates (PMR) contribute to causing the higher biomass found in severe disease. Compared with patients without a hist...

In a recent report, the cellular receptor CD55 was identified as a molecule essential for the invasion of human erythrocytes by Plasmodium falciparum, the causal agent of the most severe form of malaria. As this invasion process represents a critical step during infection with the parasite, it was hypothesized that genetic variants in the gene could affect severe malaria (SM) susceptibility. We...

INTRODUCTION The present study was designed to investigate the association between rs8177374 polymorphism and malaria symptoms due to exposure of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 454 samples were included in the study (228 malaria patients and 226 healthy individuals). Malaria patients, divided into P. vivax and P. falciparum groups on the basis of ...

Plasmodium falciparum malaria is responsible for over 250 million clinical cases every year worldwide. Severe malaria cases might present with a range of disease syndromes including acute respiratory distress, metabolic acidosis, hypoglycaemia, renal failure, anaemia, pulmonary oedema, cerebral malaria (CM) and placental malaria (PM) in pregnant women. Two main determinants of severe malaria ha...

INTRODUCTION Delayed haemolytic anaemia is one of the more frequent events after treatment with intravenous artesunate in patients with severe malaria. Little is known about its frequency and the outcomes of patients with this condition. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted to describe the incidence of delayed haemolysis in a cohort of patients with severe malaria by Plasmodium falcipa...

Severe (complicated) malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum kills over a million people every year. The annual death toll can be as high as one in 100 children under the age of five(1). Intravenous infusion of quinine is recommended as an initial therapy for these children. Recent years have witnessed increasing use of artemisinin derivatives (mainly artesunate) in the treatment of severe mala...

Severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria is a major cause of global mortality, yet the immunological factors underlying progression to severe disease remain unclear. CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells (Treg cells) are associated with impaired T cell control of Plasmodium spp infection. We investigated the relationship between Treg cells, parasite biomass, and P. falciparum malaria disease severity in...

We assessed immunoglobulin G (IgG) isotype responses to variant surface antigens (VSA) expressed on parasite-infected erythrocytes of a panel of heterologous isolates during and after acute episodes in groups of Gabonese children presenting with either mild or severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria. In the acute and convalescent phases IgG3 and IgG1 anti-VSA antibodies, respectively, predominated...