Macau has recorded this year’s first imported case of malaria, the Health Bureau (SSM) announced in a statement last night.
According to the statement, the patient is a 54-year-old local man who had worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) before returning to Macau on Wednesday last week, when he came down with a headache, fever, muscle pain, cough and runny nose, after which he sought treatment at a medical institution, which the statement did not identify.
However, the statement said, his symptoms still persisted and even worsened, after which he developed fatigue and was unable to stand and walk on Tuesday night, because of which he was taken by ambulance to the private Kiang Wu Hospital, where he was hospitalised for treatment.
According to the statement, a blood test showed that the patient had been infected with Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest species of Plasmodium parasite that causes malaria in humans, because of which he was diagnosed with falciparum malaria, one of the most serious forms of malaria.
The man was in a serious condition at the time of last night’s statement.
The statement underlined that the Macau Health Bureau has classified the man’s case as an imported case of malaria after considering his travel history and the time of the onset of his symptoms, as well as its laboratory test results.
The statement said that the patient has meanwhile been transferred to the mainland for further treatment. None of his family members in Macau had come down with the similar symptoms, the statement said.
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal communicable disease caused by a group of malaria parasites, scientifically known as Plasmodium, the statement noted.
Image courtesy of Mikael Häggström/Wikimedia Commons
