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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
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| Year : 2022 | Volume
: 25
| Issue : 3 | Page : 511 |
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Cerebral Malaria, COVID-19 and complete blood examination
Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip1, Viroj Wiwanitkit2
1 Private Academic Consultant, Bangkok, Thailand
2 Department of Community Medicine, Dr. DY Patil University, Pune, Maharashtra, India
| Date of Submission | 21-Sep-2021 |
| Date of Acceptance | 24-Sep-2021 |
| Date of Web Publication | 13-Jan-2022 |
Correspondence Address:
Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip
Private Academic Consultant, Bangkok
Thailand
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/aian.aian_839_21
How to cite this article:
Mungmunpuntipantip R, Wiwanitkit V. Cerebral Malaria, COVID-19 and complete blood examination. Ann Indian Acad Neurol 2022;25:511 |
Dear Editor,
We read the report by Ram et al.[1] with great interest. Ram et al.[1] reported on the co-occurrence of COVID-19 and malaria and concluded that “Every suspected case of COVID encephalitis has to be investigated for all possible causes …….” In the present report, it is likely that there is a problem in the first complete blood count examination. In laboratory medicine, a blood smear examination should be routinely done, and it is usually neglected when an automated hematology analyzer is widely used. Because the incubation period for COVID-19 (14 days) and cerebral malaria (12 days) can overlap, it is no doubt that there might be a co-infection and a disease might be underdiagnosed.[2] Also, it is possible that malaria might be a recurrence, not a newly acquired infection, and co-manifest with COVID-19.[3] When hydroxychloroquine is used for the management of COVID-19, it might also manage malaria co-infection in some cases and co-infection might be finally underdiagnosed.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
 References | |  |
| 1. | Ram A, Padmanabhan S, Warrier AR, Wilson A. Cerebral malaria in a patient with COVID-19. Ann Indian Acad Neurol 2021;24:616-7.  [Full text] |
| 2. | Sardar S, Sharma R, Alyamani TYM, Aboukamar M. COVID-19 and plasmodium vivax malaria co-infection. IDCases 2020;21:e00879. |
| 3. | Pusparani A, Henrina J, Cahyadi A. Co-infection of COVID-19 and recurrent malaria. J Infect Dev Ctries 2021;15:625-9. |
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