[Interest in placental apposition as an epidemiological marker for malaria]

Three studies about relation between pregnancy and malaria have been conducted in CAR. The comparative study between plasmodic indexes (PI) et placental appositions (PAP) had shown that PAP offers biggest sensibility in the diagnosis of malaria infection (37.1% for PAP versus 17.1% for PI). The comparison of the PAP with placental anatomopathological study (PAN) revealed the same sensibility of both technics but the PAP's realization is very easy, at the opposite PAN's realization is long and requires sophisticated equipment. Moreover, PAP allows the differentiation between recent and post-malaria infection. The simultaneous realization of the PAP and chloroquinaemia had allowed to develop a surveillance of chloroquine resistance level of Plasmodium falciparum to amino-4-quinolines.