The Severe Malaria in African Children (SMAC) network was established to conduct mortality-based trials. Although falciparum malaria kills more than one million children each year, single centers cannot enroll enough patients to detect reductions of 20-30% in mortality rates. Our aim was to quantify and describe severe malaria across a variety of epidemiological settings so that we could design intervention studies with more precise sample size estimates. We used a standardized surveillance mechanism to capture clinical, laboratory and outcome data on all parasitemic children admitted to hospital. Between December 2000 and December 2003, 20333 patients were enrolled at five sites. The frequency of severe malaria syndromes (cerebral malaria, severe malarial anemia and acidosis) differed between sites, as did the syndrome-specific mortality rates. Intervention studies targeted at reducing mortality in one or a combination of severe malaria syndromes would require 3-4 years to complete within the existing network. These data provide more accurate estimates of the disease burden of children hospitalized for malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Networks are required to recruit enough patients for mortality-based studies and to encompass the epidemiological diversity of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. SMAC represents the first effort to develop this capacity.

Although high levels of pigmented cells were associated with a fatal outcome in some study sites, they were not useful predictors of outcome across Africa.

Measurements of lactate concentration and acid/base balance are expensive to perform, and performance of the latter can be problematic. Severe falciparum malaria may be readily recognized in children at admission to hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa with use of simple, inexpensive means and does not require knowledge of lactate concentration and base excess.

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