Selected epidemiological and clinical aspects of malaria in the material of the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia.

Despite numerous endeavours to eradicate malaria remains a problem to be solved. This is reflected in high morbidity and mortality rates in endemic zones of this disease, and in the continually growing parasites resistance to the drugs applied within chemoprophylaxis and the treatment employed. In the compass of 1976-1987 a group of 20 thousand people, back from the tropics, was examined. In that number 415 having suffered from malaria while stay in the endemic zone of the disease, in 64 patients malaria was diagnosed in the course of the examinations. They were all subjected to the therapy in the IMTM. In several cases serious complications occurred. In the conclusions the authors point at the insufficient and inaccurate use of chemoprophylaxis the necessity of adopting individual procedure towards each patient and of considering the possibility of Plasmodium sp. infection in the people with the fever of the aetiology unknown, referring their stay in malarial regions.