Resumo

NAVARRO, P et al. Paludismo como Infección del Viajero adquirido en el Estado Sucre. RFM [online]. 2003, vol.26, n.1, pp.34-38. ISSN 0798-0469.

ABSTRACT        Among the federal states of Venezuela, Sucre contributes with the highest number of malaria cases, and it is common to see in the hospitals located in Caracas, patients who acquired the disease after they have stayed in this endemic area.       Six cases of malaria acquired in Sucre are described as traveler infection, to analyze the clinical, epidemiological and therapeutic variables observed during the medical attention of this epidemic outbreak. The patients, between 4 and 44 years old, had had fever, preceded by chills and posterior profuse sweating. They had esplenomegaly, and five of them anemia in laboratoty tests. Plasmodium vivax was demonstrated in all of their blood samples, and they were treated with chloroquine and primaquine. One patient suffered hemolysis by glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase enzyme deficiency.       Considerations are made of the necessity to establish a relationship between the clinical diagnosis and the epidemiologic situation of the patient to obtain the presumptive diagnosis of any tropical disease.       The patients who presented with fever and thrombocytopenia were confused with dengue. It has happened in other opportunities; it is common to confuse malaria and dengue, because of the thrombocytopenia. But the answer is that acute fever and thrombocytopenia are not a presumptive diagnosis of dengue. The difference is obtained, before making the etiological diagnosis, by the history that the patient comes from an malaria endemic area.

Palavras-chave : Malaria; Traveler infection; Infectious disease.