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Updated: Oct 17, 2026

A Simple Protocol for Platelet-mediated Clumping of Plasmodium falciparum-infected Erythrocytes in a Resource Poor Setting
Published on: May 16, 2013
[Congenital malarial disease due to Plasmodium falciparum in high-infection-risk newborn]
B Balaka1, A D Agbere, P Bonkoungou
1Service de néonatologie, Centre hospitalier universitaire, Lomé, Togo.
Unlabelled:
The aim of this work was to differentiate in an endemic area congenital malaria diseases (CMD) from congenital malaria infestations (CMI) or other maternal-fetal infections.
Methods:
Four hundred and seventy-five newborn (0-7 d) suspected of infection were prospectively studied. CMD was diagnosed when clinical manifestations were associated with positive thick and thin blood films in a mother and her newborn. The diagnosis of CMI was retained when despite positive parasitemia, no clinical manifestations were observed.
Results:
Forty newborns (1.7% of the cases of maternal malaria) were diagnosed as CMD and ninety-one (19% of live births) were considered as CMI. The main clinical manifestations were related to cerebral (100%), respiratory (95%) and hemodynamic (90%) systems. Hematologic signs were present in 95% of cases. The level of parasitemia varied from 700 to 3,000 parasites/mL in CMD and from 360 to 870 parasites/mL in CMI. Death occurred in ten cases (25%) of CMD.
Conclusion:
In this malaria-endemic area, neither clinical manifestions nor parasitemia allow one to distinguish CMD from CMI associated with bacterial materno-fetal infections. Studying placental or systemic immunity and antimalaria IgM in the newborn could be of interest to clarify this problem.
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