CLINICAL STUDY TO CORRELATE THE COMPLICATIONS OF MALARIA WITH PARASITE LOAD AND C - REACTIVE PROTEIN AT THE TIME OF PRESENTATION

Introduction: Malaria, an important tropical parasitic disease with respect to annual mortality all over the world is becoming an important research area. About 300-500 million cases are being reported every year across the globe, killing one million people per year. 77% of the burden of malaria in south east Asia is from India . Development of complications, leads to severe malaria, that has higher mortality and morbidity. Due to rapid multiplication, the parasite count may rise up to 20-fold over a span of 48 hours without treatment. Patients with high parasite load have a complicated course. This study aim was to correlate complications of malaria with parasite load and C-Reactive Protein (CRP) value at the time of presentation. Materials And Methods: This is a hospital based, cross sectional study done in DR Balasaheb Vikhe Patil Rural Medical College, Loni, Maharsthra, which included 100 consecutive cases of malaria diagnosed through peripheral smear. Patients above 18 years of age without prior co-morbidities were included. Aims and Objectives: To study the Correlation between the Complications of Malaria with Parasite Load and C - Reactive Protein at the Time of Presentation. Results: A total of 100 patients with malaria who satisfied the inclusion criteria were enrolled of which 84 were male and 16 were female. Most of them were between age group 21-40 years. Of total 100 cases, 72 were vivax malaria, 18 were falciparum malaria and 10 were mixed malaria positive. Complications were seen in 32 cases , of which 17 had vivax, 9 had falciparum and 6 had mixed malaria. -25 patients had higyh CRP (>100mg/dl). -86 Patients had low parasitemia (<5%) and 14 patients had high parasitemia (>5%). Patients were divided into two groups of high parasitemia (>5%) and low parasitemia (<5%) Conclusion: Complications of malaria show a positive correlation with high parasite load and high CRP values. Monitoring of treatment and response to anti malaria therapy can be done using parasite load and CRP values. Based on our study vivax malaria can no longer be considered as uncomplicated.