“For example chills and rigors are classic symptoms of malaria. But surprisingly I have met some patients who have no such symptoms.”
While chills and rigors are missing in many patients, some have a combination of cough, shortness of breath, and convulsions. Rahul Jain, internal medicine specialist at Belle Vu Clinic, said Plasmodium vivax is considered a more benign form of malaria, while Plasmodium falciparum has historically been considered a more virulent variety.
“However, lately we are having a lot of complications with Plasmodium vivax. This year I have seen at least four established cases of vivax causing full blown cerebral malaria. Two have been reported to have convulsions and the other two to ARDS ( Acute respiratory distress syndrome). One had to be ventilated,” Jain said.
“Surprisingly, we are getting vivax malaria with symptoms of viral upper and lower respiratory tract infections,” he said.
While high temperature is associated with malaria, low-grade fever is found in some patients. Some other cases have all the symptoms of classical malaria, but are found to be negative.
Chandramouli Mukherjee, internal medicine specialist at Peerless Hospital, said, “For the past few weeks, we have been getting a lot of patients who have malaria-like symptoms, but test negative for malaria, dengue and even COVID-19. Which is causing some confusion.” .
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