Clinical characteristics of neonatal malaria

The clinical characteristics of 16 neonates with malaria parasitaemia diagnosed on Giemsa stained smears were documented during a 3-month rainy season period in a tropical African city. The prevalence of neonatal malaria was 8 per cent. Seventy-five per cent of these neonates had congenital malaria, 13 per cent transfusional malaria, and 13 per cent had acquired malaria. Plasmodium falciparum was found in all positive smears. Bacterial cultures of blood, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid were sterile. The predominant clinical features were those of fever (88 per cent), respiratory distress (57 per cent), pallor and anaemia (38 per cent each), hepatomegaly (31 per cent), and jaundice and diarrhoea (25 per cent each). Twenty-five per cent of the neonates were resistant to chloroquine sulphate; 19 per cent of the chloroquine resistant babies were also resistant to quinine sulphate 13 per cent of whom responded to halofantrine hydrochloride. One died a day after completing a full course of quinine, with a post-mortem blood smear showing no change in the density of parasitaemia.