[Autochthonous malaria and malarian liver. Apropos of 1 case]

Abstract

Report of the case of a patient, store-keeper at the Roissy airport, suffering from an autochtonous primo-invasion falciparum malaria. The clinical symptoms were hectic fever and painful hepatomegalia, followed 14 days after by a typical tertian fever. All investigations being negative, a laparoscopy was carried out, which showed a black liver, and a biopsy demonstrated the malaria pigment in Küpffer cells. Malaria was confirmed by the study of a blood smear. This diagnostic hypothesis had not been raised, because of the absence of any epidemiologic argument. It seems necessary to think of autochthonous malaria among the etiologies of prolonged summer fevers in people living or working in the neighbourhood of airports, the more so that the frequency of this peculiar mode of contamination should logically increase.