Severe falciparum malaria.

ABSTRACT

Falciparum malaria affect all ages with multiple-systemic complications which varies in different age group. We studied 242 children with complicated Falciparum malaria with a median age of 6.5 years to look for occurrence of different complications in younger and older age groups and overall mortality picture. Unarousable coma (40.5%), severe anemia (26.03%), repeated seizures (46.2%) and hepatopathy (32.2%) were commonest complications. Under five children had higher risk of development of cerebral malaria (P<0.01), severe anemia (P<0.05) and seizures (P<0.001); whereas above five children had higher risk of acute renal failure (P<0.05) and malarial hepatopathy (P<0.02). Over all mortality was 9.9%, cerebral malaria being the commonest cause (6.6%). Multi-system involvement was seen in 58.4% cases of death. Children having pulmonary edema, shock and cerebral malaria had high case fatality rate.