Malaria: BD Gupta, RK Maheswari, Pankaj Agarwal (eds) (original) (raw)

The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 2020

Abstract

This is a nicely designed book in a compact soft cover format. The cover and design look fine and appear appealing. The overall paper and print quality of the textbook is fair and readable. The editors have done a commendable job in putting everything about malaria in a concise handbook. The historical aspects of malaria seem to very interesting, especially the early discovery of the malaria parasite by Charles LA Laveran and subsequent pioneering work of Sir Ronald Ross, who identified the malaria parasite in the mosquitoes. Both of them were awarded with Nobel Prizes for medicine and physiology in 1907 and 1902 respectively. The ‘year’ of various historical facts is printed in bold letters, which seem to be out of place with the normal text. A comprehensive list of all the mosquitoes (Anopheles sp.), which serve as vectors of malarial parasites have been described in detail in chapter 3 of the book. The life cycle of the various species of Plasmodium have been incorporated as color plates at the end of the book; same figures have been illustrated in chapter 4 (Figs. 4.1–4.5) in black and white cartoon diagrams. The life cycle of malaria parasite has been described in chapter 3 (section 3.3). A pictorial representation or a cartoon diagram would have made it more interesting. Table 3.4 elucidates various effective insecticides or larvicides which are currently in use in India in vector control eradication programs. Various national control programs from 1953 onwards implemented for control of malaria have been dealt in a comprehensive manner. Different public health aspects of diagnosis of malaria by rapid diagnostic tests, peripheral smear and treatment protocols have been dealt with in an easy form. Various epidemiological dimensions of malaria have been well covered in chapter 5. The trend of declining malaria cases from 75 million in 1947 to 0.67 million cases in 2017 seems reassuring that malaria can be eradicated from India as some of the southeast Asian countries like Sri Lanka and Maldives have done. Various pathological, physiological and immunological aspects have malaria have been incorporated in the text (chapter 6 and 7). This should be of interest to students of basic pathology and immunology. Pathological changes seen in the spleen, liver, bone marrow, brain and other organ manifestations have been well documented. Last two decades have generated a lot of interest in the immunological aspects of malaria and development of various malaria vaccines.RTS,S/AS01 is a genetically engineered vaccine derived from various protein components of P. falciparum and hepatitis B virus which has been developed and approved in July 2015 after extensive phase III clinical trials. This is available as Mosquirix by GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. The approval of the vaccine has been for children from 6 wk to 17 mo of age. Chapter 8 deals with diverse clinical manifestations of malaria. The spectrum of clinical manifestations from febrile illness to severe forms of malaria like cerebral malaria, respiratory distress syndrome, hemoglobinuria, renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation has been mentioned. This gives an insight into the intricacies of the parasite. Clinical features of malaria in pregnancy and children have been dealt under separate headings. It tells us howmalaria may present in pregnancy with poor outcomes like low birth weight neonates, still births and abortions. Different case summaries have been incorporated in box diagrams to highlight various clinical manifestations. The names of index patients should have been avoided or it may have beenmentioned that the original names have been changed to maintain the privacy of patients. * Dinesh Kaul docdineshkaul@gmail.com

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