- Letter to the Editor
- Open Access
Emergence of babesiosis in China-Myanmar border areas
- Received: 1 May 2015
- Accepted: 1 July 2015
- Published: 25 July 2015
Abstract
E. Vannier and P. J. Krause presented an excellent article on “Babesiosis in China, an emerging threat” in the Lancet Infectious Diseases in December 2014, which updated research on human babesiosis in China. However, a neglected and emerging issue has not been mentioned in EV & PJK’s article, that is the co-infections with B. microti and P. falciparum parasites that exist in syndemic areas, spatially in the China-Myanmar border areas of Yunnan province, China. Therefore, two important issues are addressed in here, including (i) the new emerging infections with Babesia spp. which are normally ignored in malaria endemic areas due to similarities in pathogenic morphology and clinical symptoms, (ii) additional consideration on babesiosis rather than drug-resistant malaria when anti-malaria treatment for the febrile cases in clinics fails.
Keywords
- Babesiosis
- China-Myanmar border
- Malaria
- Syndemic
- Emerging
- Febrile case
To the Editor
Syndemic areas of human babesiosis and falciparum malaria in China (High transmission areas of malaria including Yunnan province and Hainan province which are the syndemic areas of falciparum and vivax malaria (based on data in 2010). Unstable transmission areas including Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan and Hubei province which are endemic areas of vivax malaria (based on data in 2010). Transmission controlled areas of malaria, other areas of China and all endemic areas of malaria were classified according to the National malaria control program ((2006-2015); Reported human babesiosis cases and falciparum malaria cases (2010-2014) were demonstrated by histograms)
To promote correct identification and effective control of babesiosis and malaria in syndemic areas, clinical doctors and public health workers should be aware of the following information: (i) how to apply the molecular technologies to clearly distinguish babesiosis from malaria in order to overcome the difficulties in microscopy diagnosis due to their similarities in morphology and clinical symptoms, and (ii) to consider human babesiosis rather than drug-resistant malaria when febrile cases in anti-malaria treatment fail.
Declarations
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81273192).
Authors’ Affiliations
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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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