Plasmodium knowlesi and HIV co-infection in a German traveller to Thailand

Malaria Journal

Case Report

Andreas Trein¹  Peter Gottfried Kremsner²  Jonas Ehrhardt²  Matthias Frank² 

[1] Group practice Schwabstraße 59, Schwabstraße 59, 70197, Stuttgart, Germany;Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 27, 72074, Tübingen, Germany;

关键词: Plasmodium knowlesi;    Traveller;    Thailand;    Plasmodium knowlesi;    Viral load;    Malaria;    Malarone®;    Severity;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-12-283

 received in 2013-03-08, accepted in 2013-07-29,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

A case of Plasmodium knowlesi and HIV co-infection is reported in a German traveller returning from Thailand. The 54 year-old patient presented to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Tübingen with a 11-day history of daily fever and chills. Initial microscopic evaluation of Giemsa-stained thin blood smears was suggestive of a mixed infection with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium malariae. However, PCR amplification of small subunit ribosomal RNA gene revealed a P. knowlesi infection. Parasitaemia was 473 parasites/μl and the platelet count was within the normal range. Oral treatment with Malarone® was initiated and resulted in a fast recovery without any complications.As part of routine screening the patient also underwent HIV testing and was found to be HIV positive with a CD4 cell count of 115/μl and a viral load of 34,799 copies/ml. A follow-up measurement of the viral load seven days after the first quantification revealed an increase to 102,000 copies/ml. Three months after the first quantification the viral load had dropped to 10,000 copies/ml without the initiation of antiretroviral treatment. This suggests the possibility of a P. knowlesi malaria-induced temporary elevation of viral load similar to that reported for P. falciparum and HIV co-infection.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Ehrhardt et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.