Information about antimalarial chemoprophylaxis in hospitalised patients--is it adequate?

Malaria remains a huge public health problem worldwide, with over 100 million new cases annually, causing one to two million deaths. This global problem spills over into the UK, with around 2000 cases of reported annually. The proportion of infections due to Plasmodium falciparum (PF) continues to increase and worse still accounts for five to 12 deaths per year. In 1992, Nathwani et al reported the 10 year experience of malaria cases admitted to the Regional Infection Unit, in Aberdeen, Scotland--the "Oil Capital". This study was of interest in that 46% of those British residents who acquired infection had travelled to West or Central Africa on oil related business. The Oil boom of the 1980's appeared to very much centred around Aberdeen and the neighbouring hinterland but did not appear to extend to Dundee which was only 60 miles further down the North-East coast. We, therefore, carried out a retrospective study of patients with malaria admitted to the Regional Infectious Diseases Unit in Dundee over a fifteen year period between 1980 and 1994.