Diagnostic importance of headache as a key symptom in suspecting malaria in adult returning travelers.

摘要

We read with interest the article by Rodriguez-Morales, et al., describing the signs/symptoms of malaria.1 However, our malaria experience differs from theirs in several respects. In 50% of malaria patients they reported headaches which seemed surprisingly low in our experience as well as others.2"7 (Table 1) Over the last 30 years, we have found headache a nearly universal symptom in adult hospitalized patients with malaria. In our experience, the more severe the malaria, e.g., degree of parasitemia, the more prominent the headache.