Paludism: emergent diagnosis. Descriptive study of 25 cases

During the last years, the number of patients with paludism in occidental countries has raised, specially due to the increase of immigration from endemic areas and to the augmentation of international journeys to those area. A descriptive and retrospective study of the cases of paludism diagnosed at the Hospital Universitario La Princesa, was performed between January 1995 and December 2002. Twenty-five patients were diagnosed of paludism. More than half of patients (15) were immigrants coming from endemic areas and the rest were Spanish patients who had traveled to endemic places, most of them to Africa. A transfusional case was detected. Twenty-two patients didn't take prophylaxis therapy. The most usual subtype of Plasmodium was P. falciparum. Symptoms were not specific and fever was a constant feature. The period of time between the arrival in spain and the moment of diagnosis range from one to four weeks (21 patients). It is important to search for paludism infection in patients with maintained fever who have arrived from tropic regions. Prophylaxis therapy does not exclude this possibility. Response to treatment is usually satisfactory.