A paediatrician, Dr Usman Ibrahim, has advised parents to avoid mistaking symptoms of the common cold in children for malaria and to ensure proper testing before giving them antimalarial drugs.
He made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, on Friday.
Ibrahim, Senior Registrar in Pediatrics, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, said common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract that usually resolves without specific treatment.
He identified cough, runny nose, excessive sneezing and nasal congestion as typical symptoms of common cold, adding that it could also cause fever, particularly in children.
The paediatrician noted that malaria could also present with fever, but the presence of prominent respiratory symptoms and a negative malaria test from a reliable laboratory helped to rule it out.
He pointed out that some laboratories lacked the expertise for malaria diagnosis via microscopy, leading to overdiagnosis of the disease.
Ibrahim said parents often mistook cold symptoms for malaria due to diagnostic errors and poor knowledge among both parents and some health workers.
He explained that many people were unaware or unconvinced that children frequently contract viruses that cause self-limiting illnesses.
He warned that administering antimalarial drugs without proper testing could increase the risk of drug resistance and expose children to avoidable side effects, while also delaying diagnosis of more serious conditions.
The paediatrician advised that home management with fluids and paracetamol could be sufficient when a child was breathing well, eating and drinking satisfactorily, remained alert and could carry out normal activities.
He, however, urged parents to seek immediate medical attention if symptoms such as fast breathing, repeated vomiting, extreme weakness or convulsions occur.
Ibrahim further advised parents to visit the hospital whenever they were worried about their child’s health, even when symptoms did not appear severe. (NAN)
