After 3 days of fever and fatigue, Ms. P.T.T.T, 39 years old, from Vinh Phuc, went to the doctor and was admitted to the hospital. With symptoms of acute fever and low platelet count, the doctors suspected that she had dengue fever. However, after 4 days of treatment, the disease did not improve but became more severe, so Ms. T was transferred to the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases.
On the 7th day of her illness, Ms. T was admitted to the Emergency Department of the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases with high fever, chills, low blood pressure, impaired consciousness, multiple organ failure, hemolysis, and severe blood clotting disorder. Ms. T was given emergency resuscitation, endotracheal intubation, mechanical ventilation, and blood filtration.
Exploiting epidemiological information, Ms. T has traveled to many countries. Recently, Ms. T had a 2-month business trip to Sierra Leone - a West African country. On her way back, she transited in Ethiopia for 2 hours and in Thailand for 7 hours. With her symptoms and medical history, doctors suspected that Ms. T had malaria, where malaria is rampant.
Doctor Phan Van Manh, Emergency Department, Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: The patient's test results were positive for Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite (the most common strain of malaria causing severe malaria in Africa today) with a very high parasite density in the blood of 182,667 kst/mm3.
Patients with severe malaria have a critical form of the disease, cerebral malaria, and shock complications. Despite early diagnosis, combined with active resuscitation measures and early use of anti-malarial drugs, the mortality rate is still very high.
After a week of intensive treatment, on the 16th day of the disease, the malaria parasites in Ms. T's blood were gone, the patient stopped hemolysis and escaped shock, however, the patient still had to be on a ventilator and treated for other complications of organ failure.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the Plasmodium spp parasite in humans, commonly found in tropical countries. Plasmodium spp is transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes. The disease is typically manifested by fever with 3 stages: chills, fever, sweating.
