Congenital malaria in Thailand, an appraisal of previous cases.
BACKGROUND
Malaria is an important vector-borne infectious disease. Many tropical countries are the endemic area of malaria. Thailand, a tropical country in Southeast Asia, is the well-known endemic area for malaria. Although Thailand has a high prevalence of malaria, few cases of congenital malaria were reported in the past.


METHODS
Here, the author performed a literature review of the reports of congenital malaria in Thailand in order to summarize the characteristics of this infection among Thai patients.


RESULTS
According to this study, there have been at least six reports in the literature of 27 cases of congenital malaria infection in the Thai population, of which no case was lethal. There were 22 vivax (81.5%) and five falciparum (18.5%) malarial cases. The details on clinical presentations of these cases are presented and discussed.


CONCLUSIONS
According to this study, it can be seen that congenital malaria may occur in the absence of clinical symptoms in mothers as well as their children. Concerning the species of malaria, the vivax malaria is more common in this case series.
Wiwanitkit
Viroj
V
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. wviroj@yahoo.com
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001800:Blood Specimen Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018445:Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical; D008288:Malaria / Q000151:congenital* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000151:congenital; D016780:Malaria, Vivax / Q000151:congenital; D010961:Plasmodium / Q000302:isolation & purification; D011247:Pregnancy; D015597:Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013785:Thailand / Q000453:epidemiology