Case Report


Exotic infection presentation of Plasmodium ovale malaria in Morgan County, Alabama

,  ,  

1 Medical Student at Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine, USA

2 Internal Medicine at Decatur-Morgan Hospital, USA

3 Medical Director & Clinical Pathology at Decatur- Morgan Hospital & Prime Path PC

Address correspondence to:

Sujana Reddy

Medical Student at Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine,

USA

Message to Corresponding Author


Article ID: 100976Z01SR2018

doi: 10.5348/100976Z01SR2018CR

Access full text article on other devices

Access PDF of article on other devices

How to cite this article

Reddy S, Penot A, Soni M. Exotic infection presentation of Plasmodium ovale malaria in Morgan County, Alabama. Int J Case Rep Images 2018;9:100976Z01SR2018.

ABSTRACT


Malaria is commonly associated with the virulent form of parasite species known as P. falciparum. Another species that has the capability of causing severe disease is Plasmodium vivax; however, in contrast to these two species, Plasmodium ovale, discovered in 1922, is much rarer and have been known to cause a benign version of malaria. The case of an exotic infection was presented in the non-malaria-endemic North Alabama area imported from Sub-Saharan Africa. P. ovale was discovered in a 41-year-old woman complaining of fever and myalgia. First peripheral blood smear microscopic analysis was negative for malaria parasites. However, second blood smear confirmed the presence of P. ovale with a 1% parasitemia. Challenges in diagnosing this strain stem from the fact that P. ovale is not endemic to the United States and that the relapse phenomenon has not been adequately researched. It remains for a large part unexplained and warrant further investigation.

Keywords: Infectious disease, Malaria, Nonendemic malaria, Plasmodium, P. ovale

SUPPORTING INFORMATION


Author Contributions

Sujana Reddy - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published

Alexis Penot - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published

Monita Soni - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Final approval of the version to be published

Source of Support

None

Consent Statement

Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this study.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Conflict of Interest

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Copyright

© 2018 Sujana Reddy et al. This article is distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original author(s) and original publisher are properly credited. Please see the copyright policy on the journal website for more information.