Malaria ‘imported’ from Africa

A 38-year-old male patient, from Ha Tinh, has lived in Angola for 12 years, and has been home for a week. Five days before admission, he had a high fever twice a day and usually in the afternoon, chills, headache, painful urination, diarrhea. The local medical facility did not detect the disease, he went to Ha Tinh General Hospital, then his condition worsened, so he was transferred to the Center for Tropical Diseases, Bach Mai Hospital. Doctors exploit epidemiological factors combined with blood tests to detect patients infected with the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

The second patient is a female, 32 years old, 6 months pregnant, from Hanoi, she worked in Angola for 8 years and returned home a week later. She had malaria in 2021. This time three days before entering the hospital, she had a high fever, severe shivering, sweating, vomiting, nausea, and headache. She went to a private clinic, then transferred to the National Institute of Malaria – Insect Parasitology for testing, the doctor diagnosed malaria. Pregnant patients with thrombocytopenia should be referred to the Tropical Diseases Center for monitoring.

Assoc. Hanoi and the northern provinces have almost no malaria patients. This leads to the timely detection, diagnosis and treatment of malaria cases returning from abroad, which are still difficult and easily missed. Especially, after the pandemic, trade activities have returned, the hospital has recorded many cases of malaria from abroad, also known as “imported” malaria.

“The two patients above had a fever right after returning to Vietnam, but the local health department did not detect it, ignoring the epidemiological factor that it was from Africa,” the doctor said. The initial symptoms are atypical, easily confused with other diseases such as flu, Covid-19, dengue fever, or urinary infection…

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the Plasmodium parasite, transmitted mainly by the Anopheles mosquito. The initial manifestation of the disease is chills, fever, then sweating. Many cases of malaria do not have a typical fever, the patient only feels chills or chills. Malaria if diagnosed late, has dangerous complications such as coma, multi-organ failure (liver, kidney, lung…) or anemia, convulsions, hypoglycemia.

Doctors recommend people from malaria-endemic areas need to be screened, epidemiological investigation and blood test for malaria parasites or not for medical declaration. When there is a fever, the patient should go to the doctor immediately to avoid confusion and omission.

If malaria is treated promptly, with the right drugs and good drugs, the functions will gradually recover. Currently available antimalarial drugs (Artesunate, Arterakin) are provided under the program by the Ministry of Health. October 2021, World Health Organization (WHO) approved first vaccine prevent malaria, which could save the lives of thousands of children each year.

Thuy An