Clinical and experimental studies on quartan malaria following blood transfusion and methods for preventing its occurrence.

In recent years a number of cases of quartan malaria have been noted following blood transfusion and haemotherapy. Clinical and experimental research on such cases has been carried out in the USSR with three strains of Plasmodium malariae isolated in the Soviet Union.It was found possible to cure induced quartan malaria with chloroquine diphosphate, mepacrine in association with plasmocide, and either proguanil or cycloquine with quinocide.Prevention of infection in persons receiving blood from a donor infected with P. malariae was achieved by administration 600 mg of cycloquine or chloroquine diphosphate before the blood transfusion.Since it has been shown that a donor with no history of malaria who has lived in an area where malaria had been endemic 20 years previously may have chronic symptomless parasitaemia and may transmit infection through his blood, the authors recommend that blood for transfusion or haemotherapy should not be taken from residents in former foci of quartan malaria.