Korean J Infect Dis.  2000 Apr;32(2):158-163.

Three cases of vivax malaria showing atypical clinical course

• Jung WC
• Kho WG
• Kang MW

Abstract

Vivax malaria has been endemic in Korea since the 15th century. In the 1960s a Malaria Eradication Project was introduced by the Korean government in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1979, WHO declared Korea a malaria-free area. Thereafter, any cases of malaria in Korea were imported cases. In 1993 a case of malaria, that was not imported, was identified. From then, malaria cases have increased exponentially and have tended to expand toward souther areas of Korea. We experienced three cases showing atypical clinical course of vivax malaria. In the first case, the patient had a spike of fever after the completion of standard chloroquine-primaquine therapy. He revealed the recrudescence of vivax malaria. The second one was asymptomatic parasitemia. The patient had no complaint for the prolonged period despite low level of parasitemia. The third patient was natural healing or vivax malaria with a relative long incubation period. Therefore we report these atypical cases with review.

Keyword

Plasmodium vivax; Malaria; Atypical clinical course

MeSH Terms

Fever
Humans
Korea
Malaria
Malaria, Vivax*
Parasitemia
Plasmodium vivax
Recurrence
World Health Organization