Clinico-epidemiological profile of patients admitted with Plasmodium vivax malaria in a tertiary care hospital, Delhi

Abstract

Background: Malaria is an important public health problem in India. Severe and complicated forms of malaria are usually associated with Plasmodium falciparum species. But recently published literature suggests that Plasmodium vivax infection also presents as severe malaria. The objective was to study clinical and epidemiological profile of patients with P. vivax malaria admitted in Safdarjung hospital.Methods: A record based retrospective study was conducted in Vardhman Mahavir Medical College & Safdarjung Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in Delhi. Data were collected from all case records with ICD 10 codes for Malaria (B50-B54) for the year 2011 obtained from Medical Records Department, Safdarjung Hospital and analyzed using SPSS 21.0.Results: A total of 147 case records which had information about the test results for type of malaria infection were reviewed. Out of 147, 89 (60.5%) had P. vivax malaria. Of the 89 patients with P. vivax malaria, 47 (53%) were children and 63 (70.7%) were males. A peak in the number of inpatients was seen in September with median duration of hospital stay of 4 days and case fatality rate of 9%. A total of 56 (63%) patients had one or more severe manifestations of malaria as per WHO criteria. The most common severe manifestation was bleeding 27 (30%) followed by impaired consciousness 18 (20%).Conclusions: In more than half of the malaria patients admitted at the tertiary care centre the diagnosis was P. vivax malaria. Of them 63% patients had severe malaria as per WHO criteria.