Introduction: Few studies describe the clinical presentations of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in the province of Córdoba in an endemic area of northwestern Colombia.
Objective: Profiles of patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria were described from two twons of Córdoba, Tierrata and Puerto Libertador, based on clinical, epidemiological and laboratory variables.
Materials and methods: Patients were examined according to standard WHO/PAHO protocols for assessment of antimalarial drug efficacy. Clinical data and parasitological information was collected as well. A multiple correspondence multivariate analysis was used to compare the profiles of 127 patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria.
Results: Of the 127 patients,105 completed the 14-day follow-up and 7 had adequate clinical response. Between 80% and 98% of patients exhibited at least one of the most frequent symptoms of uncomplicated malaria, and 80.3% had asthenia as the most frequent symptom. The multivariate analysis grouped the variables into five distinguishable clusters of clinical profiles. These groups showed similarities with the classical clinical descriptions of uncomplicated malaria encountered in the literature. The low frequency of patients with adequate clinical response hampered the association analysis.
Conclusions: In Córdoba, therapeutic failure to chloroquine treatment is high in treating uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Multivariate analysis summarized variables related to epidemiological and clinical aspects and permitted a more objective approach to the interpretation of the findings.