Nandini Vasudevan, Sawantharia Jaganathan, Priya Jose, P. Kommu
{"title":"Coinfection of malaria and scrub typhus in a toddler: First report from South India","authors":"Nandini Vasudevan, Sawantharia Jaganathan, Priya Jose, P. Kommu","doi":"10.4103/jcrsm.jcrsm_125_23","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Tropical infections are common in South Asia, including India. However, coinfections among the different diseases are rare in children. We report a case of malaria-scrub typhus coinfection in a toddler from South India. A 3-year-old boy presented with fever. He was pale, dull-looking and had hepatosplenomegaly.. There was mild leukocytosis with positive C reactive protein. Rapid malarial antigen was positive, and started on antimalarial therapy. Fever was persisting after 48 h and doxycycline was started. Scrub typhus immunoglobulin M was positive. He responded dramatically to doxycycline, and in 24 hours, he became afebrile. The prevalence of this coinfection was studied by Wilairatana et al. in 2021 and showed a low prevalence of 0%–1%. Our case is unique and rare as this has not been reported in a toddler. Children with acute undifferentiated fever which is not responding to therapy within 48 hours must be investigated for concurrent infection.","PeriodicalId":32638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Current Research in Scientific Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Current Research in Scientific Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4103/jcrsm.jcrsm_125_23","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Tropical infections are common in South Asia, including India. However, coinfections among the different diseases are rare in children. We report a case of malaria-scrub typhus coinfection in a toddler from South India. A 3-year-old boy presented with fever. He was pale, dull-looking and had hepatosplenomegaly.. There was mild leukocytosis with positive C reactive protein. Rapid malarial antigen was positive, and started on antimalarial therapy. Fever was persisting after 48 h and doxycycline was started. Scrub typhus immunoglobulin M was positive. He responded dramatically to doxycycline, and in 24 hours, he became afebrile. The prevalence of this coinfection was studied by Wilairatana et al. in 2021 and showed a low prevalence of 0%–1%. Our case is unique and rare as this has not been reported in a toddler. Children with acute undifferentiated fever which is not responding to therapy within 48 hours must be investigated for concurrent infection.