Vivax malaria presenting with myelitis: a rare complication

Neurological complications may occur with the Plasmodium falciparum infection. However, the association of neurological manifestations with vivax malaria remains doubtful. Of late, there are isolated case reports/studies which have implicated P. vivax in the pathogenesis of severe malaria which is c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical and diagnostic research 2013-05, Vol.7 (5), p.914-916
Main Authors: Moulick, Avijit, Maitra, Somnath, Sarkar, Biswasnath Sharma, Jana, Anirban, Sarkar, Sujoy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case Report
dorsal cord myelitis
neurological complication
p. vivax malaria
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Neurological complications may occur with the Plasmodium falciparum infection. However, the association of neurological manifestations with vivax malaria remains doubtful. Of late, there are isolated case reports/studies which have implicated P. vivax in the pathogenesis of severe malaria which is characterized by the features of different organ dysfunctions, which were previously thought to be caused by P. falciparum alone. Though several case studies have mentioned the association of the P. vivax infection with cerebral malaria, a causal correlation has yet to be established. Dorsal cord myelitis (which leads to paraplegia) during the febrile illness, is rarely described in association with vivax malaria, though there are reports on the Post Malaria Neurological Syndrome (PMNS) and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis following vivax malaria. We are reporting a case of P. Vivax malaria which presented with myelitis, which responded well to the antimalarial treatment.
ISSN:2249-782X
0973-709X
DOI:10.7860/JCDR/2013/5251.2974