Affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, Kasturba Medical College,
Manipal University, Karnataka, India
Note: [] Correspondence: Dr. Ramesh Bhat Y, Department of Pediatrics,
Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal-576104, Karnataka, India.
Tel.: +91 9448296564; Fax: +91 820 2571927; E-mail:
docrameshbhat@yahoo.co.in
Abstract: The epidemiologic features, clinical presentations and severity of
malaria influence effective treatment and control strategies. We aimed to study
clinical presentations, complications and fever resolution time (FRT) following
chloroquine in childhood malaria. Children hospitalised with fever without any
obvious cause in whom rapid diagnostic test confirmed malaria were enrolled for
a prospective observational study. Continued fever beyond 96 hours following
chloroquine was considered as treatment failure. Of total 113 children with
malaria, 76.9% had Plasmodium vivax, 22.1% had Plasmodium falciparum and one
had mixed infection. Children from endemic areas constituted 46.1% of cases.
Mean duration of fever prior to admission was significantly less among children
from endemic than non-endemic areas (p ⩽ 0.001). Headache, vomiting, cough
and convulsions were present in 42.5%, 31.9%, 20.4% and 1.8% respectively;
splenomegaly, hepatomegaly and anemia were observed in 80.5%, 10.6% and 9.7%.
Fever resolved in 92.9% with mean FRT of 31.1 ± 17.5 hours. Complications
occurred in 11.5%. P. vivax caused malaria usually responded to chloroquine;
treatment failure was significantly higher in P. falciparum infections (p <
0.001). The FRT is likely to be of clinical value in resource poor
settings.
