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Each year, approximately 1500 malaria cases are reported in the U.S.; about 200 of them are imported from Asia or South America. Nearly all cases of human malaria are caused by one of four Plasmodium species, and infection of humans by nonhuman Plasmodium species is rare.
The CDC recently reported a case of malaria in a 50-year-old woman who had spent 2 weeks in the Philippines. Several days after returning to the U.S., she presented at a hospital with fever, chills, and headache and was found to have thrombocytopenia and hypotension. Blood smears were taken, and a laboratory technician diagnosed babesiosis. The following day, the laboratory supervisor reassessed the diagnosis as malaria; 2.9% of the red blood cells were parasitized. Althoug…