Provisional Data Report on Malaria Surveillance and Use of Antimalarial Chemoprophylaxis, January-December 2003

摘要

Malaria is caused by infection with any of four species of the protozoan parasite Plasmodium (i.e., P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae). The Plasmodium parasite is transmitted by the bite of an infected anopheline mosquito. Until the 1940s, malaria was endemic in the United States. Since then, malaria case surveillance has been conducted by CDC to monitor malaria infections and patient characteristics and risk factors, to detect locally acquired cases, and to monitor patterns of antimalarial chemoprophylaxis failures among U.S. travelers. The Malaria Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) makes recommendations for chemoprophylaxis use for U.S. residents traveling to malarious areas. CDC currently recommends chloroquine as the antimalarial drug of choice for those persons visiting malarious areas that do not have reported strains of chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum.