Clinical and Laboratory Predictors of outcome of Cerebral Malaria

Malaria is a major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide: it causes about 2 million deaths in a year, most of which are among the under-five children in sub-Saharan Africa. Cerebral malaria is the most severe manifestation of falciparum malaria with mortality rate ranging from 5 ¿ 50% in hospitalized children globally.This study showed that death from cerebral malaria at the University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, is very high; under-five age group are mostly affected and prognostic factors predictive of poor outcome are similar to documented findings in literature. It is therefore recommended that CM patients with any or combination of the documented clinical and laboratory predictors of outcome should be given prompt and appropriate management especially during the first 48 hours of admission during which most CM patients died.