Background and objective: Senegal is increasingly becoming a touristic target for many people. In 2000, there was a greater number of cases of malaria in patients from this country. Our objective was to analyze such increase, to describe the characteristics of these patients and to identify the reasons for it.
Patients and method: From 1999 to 2002 we prospectively collected the clinical and epidemiological data of all consecutive malaria cases seen in the Unit of Tropical Medicine of the Hospital Clinic (Barcelona, Spain).
Results: We attended 276 patients, 74 of them during 2000; of them, 17 had travelled to Senegal and Gambia. Their mean age was 36.58 (6.9) years and 12% were women. 59% patients were Spaniards, 35% were native of Senegal and 6% of Gambia. Reason of travel was tourism in 9 cases (53%) and a visit to the family in 7 cases (41%). Mean duration of the visit was 31 (20.6) days and only 17.6% patients did a right prophylaxis. Plasmodium falciparum was the commonest species (88%). The number of patients with malaria who had visited Senegal ranged from 6.6% in 1996 to 20% in 2000 to 6.3% in 2002 (p<0.05).
Conclusions: There was an unexpected increase of malaria imported from Senegal in 2000 in our Unit. Changes in both the dynamics of malaria transmission and tourism offers may account for an unsuspected increase of malaria cases.