Abstract
Cerebral malaria is severe malaria presenting with neurological symptoms, including coma that lasts longer than 30 minutes after a seizure, or it is any impairment of consciousness or convulsions in a patient of malaria with no other causes of coma. Cerebral malaria is generally the result of infection by Plasmodium falciparum, but rarely it is a presenting complication or occurs during the course of P. vivax infection. Here we report a unique case of adult cerebral malaria caused by P. vivax presented by seizures and other variant symptoms. Peripheral blood microscopy, parasite antigen-based assays, plasmodium antibodies showed the presence of P. vivax and absence of P. falciparum. The patient was diagnosed and successfully treated with parenteral quinine followed by primaquine without any sequelae. This case demonstrated that sole Plasmodium vivax could induce severe cerebral injury.
Highlights
Cerebral malaria is severe malaria characterized by unarousable coma at least half an hour after termination of seizures or it is any impairment of consciousness or convulsions and asexual forms of the parasite seen in peripheral blood smear with no other explainable causes of coma [1]
Cerebral malaria is caused by P. falciparum but in the past few years many cases of severe malaria are being reported due to infection with Plasmodium vivax [2,3,4,5,6]
We report a unique case of P. vivax infection complicated by severe malaria in an Indian adult female in the postpartum period
Summary
Cerebral malaria is severe malaria characterized by unarousable coma at least half an hour after termination of seizures or it is any impairment of consciousness or convulsions and asexual forms of the parasite seen in peripheral blood smear with no other explainable causes of coma [1]. Cerebral malaria is caused by P. falciparum but in the past few years many cases of severe malaria are being reported due to infection with Plasmodium vivax [2,3,4,5,6]. About half of vivax severe malaria cases have occurred in children.
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