Malaria in Pregnancy

​​​As for other refugee patients, we do not currently recommend asymptomatic malaria screening in pregnant patients from endemic countries (see Map1 and Map2). However, malaria in pregnancy can lead to potentially severe complications in both the mother and the fetus such as maternal anemia, miscarriage/stillbirth and IUGR/low birth weight (Desai et al., 2007, Moore et al., 2017). Therefore, malaria testing should be immediately considered for any symptom that could potentially be due to malaria.

Remember that malaria can sometimes only cause vague symptoms such as headache or malaise, without any objectified fever. Patients who have recently arrived from an endemic country in the last 3 months are especially at risk.

See Malaria for more information on malaria testing.