Mixed Plasmodium falciparum-Plasmodium malariae infection and hemoglobin SC disease: A case report

Abstract

In today's society, immigration and travel has resulted in large-scale population movements. This poses an additional challenge to the clinician when he or she takes the patient's history. The differential diagnosis of any presentation would need to include any diseases endemic to the area where the patient had been in. Ghana is considered a holoendemic high-risk area for the transmission of malaria. Moreover, compound heterozygous inheritance of hemoglobin (Hb) S and HbC often occurs in this area. We present a case of mixed Plasmodium falciparum-Plasmodium malariae infection complicating HbSC disease in a 34-year-old Ghanaian immigrant. We postulate that the malaria infection has transformed the patient's silent combined hemoglobinopathies (HbS/HbC) into a syndrome resembling a sickle cell crisis. © 2006 International Society of Travel Medicine.