Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Doctors at Hanoi's Bạch Mai Hospital have warned of the riskof malaria from Africa as the hospital's Centre for Tropical Diseases istreating two malaria patients who returned from Angola recently.

Formany years, Hanoi and the northern provinces have had almost no malariapatients, so the timely detection, diagnosis and treatment of malaria casesreturning from abroad in grass-roots health facilities is difficult andeasily missed.

PatientNguyen Dinh Th., 38, from the central province of Ha Tinh, returned home fromAngola one week ago.

Before,he worked and lived in Angola for 12 years. Five days before beinghospitalised, he got a high fever, shivers and severe headaches. The feversmainly occurred in the afternoon twice a day, accompanied by painfulurination and loose stools.

Thepatient went to a medical facility near his home, but doctors did not find anydisease, so he went to the Ha Tinh General Hospital in severe conditionand was transferred to the Centre for Tropical Diseases.

Afterexploiting the epidemiological factors by doing blood tests, the doctorsdiscovered Plasmodium falciparum's malaria parasite in his blood.

Thesecond patient is a 6-month pregnant woman in Hanoi. She worked in Angola foreight years and just came back to Hanoi one week ago.

Threedays before the hospital admission, she had a high fever and severe chills,mainly in the evening.

Afterthe fever, she sweated a lot, accompanied by vomiting, nausea and headaches.

Shewent to a private clinic, was admitted to the National Institute of Malaria,Parasitology and Entomology for testing and was diagnosed with malaria.

Dueto her pregnancy and low platelet disease, she was transferred to the Centrefor Tropical Diseases, where she was closely monitored.

Accordingto Associated Professor Do Duy Cuong, the centre's director, bothpatients developed fever right after returning to Vietnam, but the healthcarefacilities at the grass-roots level did not pay attention to theepidemiological factor that they had been in Africa, so they did notdetect the disease.

Dueto the rampant atypical malaria symptoms, it was easy to confuse with otherdiseases such as flu, COVID-19, dengue fever, or urinary infection, Cường said.

Cườngadded: "In recent years, malaria in Vietnam had been controlled quitesuccessfully because we had effective malaria control programmes in localitiesand adequate malarial medicines, so the rates of infection and mortality fromthe disease had decreased significantly."

"Thedisease has now occurred only in a few provinces in the Central Highlands andsouthern provinces." 

However,the centre recently received many malaria patients from Africa, so itis called "imported" malaria.

Thedoctor said the reason was due to a lot of travel and the restoration offlights for Vietnamese people returning home from Africa, especially fromAngola, after a period of COVID-19.

Therehave been many warnings about malaria cases returning from Africa in recentyears, especially in those who returned from Angola.

Therefore,these people must declare epidemiological factors, monitor health and gettested because malaria can become severe and life-threatening.

"Wehad seen many cases of malaria becoming acute malaria with the symptom ofpersistent high fever, which can cause patients to enter into a comafor three to five days, which is life-threatening," the doctor said.

"Whenfalling into a coma, patients can get multi-organ failure of the liver,kidneys and lungs, or anaemia, convulsions and hypoglycemia," hesaid.

"However,if treated promptly, the organ functions will gradually recover with theright medicines." 

Currently,the malaria medicines of Artesunate and Arterakin are provided under themalaria prevention and control programme by the Ministry of Health./.