Abstract
A newborn with fever and jaundice was referred to our hospital with anemia and thrombocytopenia of unknown origin. The patient's mother suffered from malaria infection during the third trimester of her pregnancy, but she did not accept medical therapy. On physical examination the newborn showed mild splenomegaly and jaundice. Laboratory tests revealed marked anemia with a hemoglobin value of 7.7 g/L and thrombocytopenia with platelet numbers of 17,000/mm3. Plasmodium vivax was detected in blood smear. Oral therapy with chloroquine and primaquine was started. This patient is the second case of congenital malaria reported from Turkey, and shows that the diagnosis of congenital malaria should be considered in infants with suspected congenital infection who are born to mothers with a history of malarial disease. We emphasize the importance of adequate antenatal medical therapy during pregnancy.
Copyright and license
Copyright © 2006 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.