Abstract
Background: Malaria is endemic in Pakistan and physicians should be fully aware of varied clinical and laboratory manifestations of malaria in children to maintain high index of suspicion for diagnosis.
Objective: To describe the clinical features and haematological investigations of children with Plasmodium Vivax malaria in a tertiary care hospital.
Methods: This analytic cross-sectional study consisted of 83 children under l5years of age. They had clinical features suggestive of malaria and blood films were positive for Plasmodium Vivax. Data were collected by non-probability convenient sampling technique and were analyzed by SPSS version 21.
Results: Of 83 children, mean age was 5.3+4.4 years and 66% were males. All patients had fever (100%) associated with rigor and chills (94%), vomiting (73 5%) and abdominal pain (32 5%). Splenomegaly was found in 92.8%, pallor in 89%, hepatomegaly in 85% and jaundice in 25% children. It was observed that 77.1% of the children had anaemia with mean haemoglobin as 9.1+2.53 g/dL and 84% had thrombocytopenia with mean thrombocyte count as 114 + 73 x 103/mm*. Red cell indices and haematocrit were below the normal limits. Splenomegaly was significantly associated with rigors/chills, vomiting, jaundice, abdominal pain and pallor (p <0.05). Hepatomegaly was found to has significant association with abdominal pain only (p <0.001).
Conclusion: High grade fever with chills/rigors and vomiting along with hepatosplenomegaly were main clinical features of Plasmodium Vivax malaria. Anaemia and thrombocytopenia were most frequent haematological disturbances.
Corresponding Author | Dr. Muhammad Rafique, Professor & Head Department of Paediatrics Khawaja Safdar Medical College, Sialkot Email: mrafiquelhr@hotmail.com
