[Digestive manifestations of malaria in adults in an endemic zone]

The retrospective analysis, on a twelve months' period, of 146 files of patients suffering from malaria at the National University Hospital in Cotonou helps conclude what follows: the gastro-intestinal manifestations are frequent and represent 41% of adult malaria cases. Most of the time, they are characterized by vomiting (32.9%), followed by abdominal pains (20.5%). Diarrhoea is less frequent and represents only 6.8% of the cases. Those signs may be unusually acute and be mistaken for a possible surgery emergency or have serious consequences on the general health of the patients. They can, for instance, involve shock. The anoxaemia of tissues involved by microcirculation troubles is the main factor of the pathogenesis of those manifestations. A specific cure only can entail the disappearance of those signs and restore normal blood circulation conditions.