Clinical presentation of childhood malaria in Savannakhet province, Lao PDR.

A descriptive study on the clinical presentation of childhood malaria was conducted in Savannakhet Province, Lao People's Democratic Republic. It is aimed to describe the clinical features and to determine the association between the severity of malaria and the initiation or delay of treatment. A total number of 92 children 1-14 years of age with confirmed malaria diseases were enrolled in this study. Fifty-six cases (60.9%) had illness for less than 3 days before hospitalized and 36 cases (39.1%) for more than 3 days. Twenty-nine cases (31.5%) had self antimalarial medication before admission (9 cases of chloroquine, 16 cases of quinine and 4 cases of artesunate). Ten cases (10.9%) had abnormal consciousness of which 7 cases (7.6%) had confusion but responded to verbal command and 3 cases (3.3%) were in coma not respond to painful stimuli but had reflex. Two cases 2.2%) had convsulsions, 11 cases (12.0%) had dehydration, 47 cases (51.1%) had vomiting, 18 cases (19.6%) had hepatomegaly and 19 cases (20.7%) had splenomegaly. There was a statistically significant association between consciousness levels and the duration of illness before admission < or = 3 days and > 3 days (p = 0.01) while there is no significant difference between parasitemia density and the duration of illness before admission (p > 0.05).

A quantification methodology of conversion rate based on field detected RI cases to RII-RIII cases--an approach for an alternative anti-malaria drug strategy.

This paper describes a quantification methodology to find out the conversion rate of RII-RIII cases from RI (Short recrudescence) cases based on parasite clearance time (PCT) and Parasite Recrudescence Time (PRT). This method will facilitate in planning and formulating an alternate drug strategy for malaria control.