Cerebral malaria is a diffuse encephalopathy associated with seizures and status epilepticus which can occur in up to one-third of patients with severe malaria, particularly that caused by
Plasmodium falciparum
.
In this article, we report three cases of
Plasmodium vivax
malaria (all adult male patients) complicated by seizures and symptoms of diffuse meningoencephalitis. Two patients had predominantly meningeal signs, while in the third patient the features were purely of encephalitis All cases were treated with artesunate. Usually, cerebral malaria is caused by
P. falciparum, and rarely, cerebral malaria is a presenting complication or occurs during the course of
P. vivax infection.