QUESTION:

My dad was infected with malaria,and his blood platelets were depleted to 35000. He was immediately admitted to hospital. Now after 5 days of being admitted, he is getting high fever around 102 degrees every morning and evening. His blood platelets have increased to 3lac and all other reports are normal. According to the doctor, the malaria is cured, but they are not able to detect the reason for periodical high fever…is such fever common after malaria? What might be the reason? Please help.

ANSWER:

One of our collaborating medical doctors has kindly assisted in providing this answer. Fever can be from co-infection with a second strain/type of malaria, or from the drug being used to treat the malaria.  If his platelets were that low, then the likely type of malaria causing the infection would be Plasmodium falciparum, or a particularly heavy P. vivax burden, or infection with both. If he was/is in the hospital, other causes for fever could also be the IV line/another drug being given, complications such as pneumonia from being at bedrest or so ill, cholecystitis from not eating due to illness, DVT or blood clots in legs from immobility….there are many possibilities. More information would be needed to distinguish between these options.