Table 1.

Common pitfalls in the management of malaria.⁷

•Failure to take a detailed travel history •Failure to consider the diagnosis of malaria and perform diagnostic tests •Failure to recognise that malaria may present with non-specific symptoms and lack a classical fever pattern •Assumption that adherence to malaria prophylaxis excludes possibility of malaria infection •Failure to consider additional diagnoses, especially in patients with naturally acquired immunity who may have ‘asymptomatic’ parasitaemia •Assumption that growing up in an endemic area confers protective immunity •Assumption that a negative RDT rules out malaria infection •Failure to repeat blood films if the initial blood film is negative but clinical suspicion of malaria is high •Failure to seek specialist advice •Assumption that only children get severely unwell •Assumption that P. falciparum is the only species to cause severe malaria •Failure to prescribe primaquine for P. vivax or P. ovale spp. malaria to prevent relapse