Retrospective Study of Malaria Cases Treated in Newcastle General Hospital between 1990 and 1996

Abstract

Greater awareness of the risk of malaria by travelers and medical practitioners in UK must be encouraged and in particular appropriate chemoprophylaxis instituted for travelers to chloroquine-resistant areas.

Trends in imported childhood malaria in the UK:1999-2003

“…5 One retrospective study of adult and paediatric malaria cases, for example, found that 78% of British Caucasian travellers took prophylaxis as compared with only 13.5% of travellers of ethnic minority origins. 17 It is reassuring to note that mortality due to malaria remains low in children: a finding reported by several recent large studies on malaria. 8 9 13 Unfortunately, the two deaths that did occur in children are a strong reminder to take a travel history and consider malaria in the differential diagnosis for any unwell child returning from an area endemic to malaria.…”

Impact of Competitive Inhibition and Sequence Variation upon the Sensitivity of Malaria PCR

“…Regardless of method, we emphasize that diagnostic tools need to be able to adequately detect and distinguish the malarial species, particularly the highly pathogenic P. falciparum. The requirement for adequate discrimination is further necessitated by the high incidence of mixed-species malarial infections (up to 12%) (6,10,15). In this study, we utilized published real-time PCR methods to highlight the potential for sequence variation and competitive inhibition to produce false-negative results by Plasmodium species PCR methods.…”