Empirical ANtibiotic THErapy in Adults Hospitalised With Malaria

Plain-language summary

While World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommend empirical antibacterial therapy as the standard of care in all African children with severe falciparum malaria, there are fewer data to guide the management of adults with the disease in low transmission settings. Presently WHO guidelines do not recommend empirical antibacterial therapy in adults with malaria in low transmission settings, instead antibacterial therapy is only clearly recommended in those patients in whom a serious bacterial co-infection is clinically suspected. However, in a pilot study in Myanmar (High Frequency of Clinically Significant Bacteremia in Adults Hospitalized With Falciparum Malaria PMID: 26989752) we found that 13% of adults hospitalized with falciparum malaria were bacteremic, with bacterial co-infection suspected by clinicians in the minority. Patients with serious bacterial infection are commonly not bacteraemic and so this probably underestimates the frequency of significant bacterial co-infection. In that pilot study, over 75% of patients received empirical antibacterial therapy on admission to hospital, which would not accord with published WHO guidelines as clinicians suspected bacterial co-infection in only 17%. However, the study's 100% survival rate - when over half of the patients were at high risk of death - suggests that the administration of antibacterial therapy may be appropriate until bacterial co-infection is excluded. There is also academic debate about the role of co-morbidities in the presentation of patients severely ill with vivax malaria. Bacterial co-infection has been reported in some - but by no means all - studies of severe vivax infection. It would be useful to determine the relative contribution of bacterial co-infection to the clinical presentation of patients with vivax malaria. By systematically seeking evidence of bacterial co-infection in all patients hospitalized at the study sites, this study aims to determine if the bacterial infection is really as prevalent as was the case in the pilot study. Accordingly it aims to determine the utility of a strategy that includes empirical antibacterial therapy in adults hospitalized with malaria in low transmission settings, until significant bactrila infection has been excluded.

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