Treating malaria with e-mail

A bit old - 2004 - but it gave me a good laugh at the time.

The study describes 5 patients with malaria, with management followed up with the OptiMAL dipstick test.

Patients 1 and 4 were treated with intravenous quinine; patient 5 was treated with chloroquine; and patients 2 and 3 were given e-mail.

A second patient with malaria was unconscious and severely anaemic (Hb, 6 g/dl), with an asexual count of 298,880 parasites/ul. He was given e-mail, however, he died on the next day. The third patient was suffering from Parkinson’s disease with a parasite count of 112,800 parasites/ul (Hb 10 g/dl). He was also administered e-mail and subsequent follow-up on days 2 and 7 revealed clearance of parasitaemia by both tests.

Singh N, Nagpal AC. Performance of the OptiMAL dipstick test for management of severe and complicated malaria cases in a tertiary hospital, central India. J Infect 2004; 48: 364-5. Abstract on PubMed.