Malaria case study?

Question

I am trying to identify which form of malaria this is. I believe that it is Plasmodium Falciparum because of the ring forms, and because she ends up dying from it. I'm not entirely sure though, heres part of the casestudy.

On her return to have her PPD read, the patient was found to be hypotensive and had mental status changes. She was noted to be icteric. A diagnosis was made in the hermatology lab based on the appearance of delicate ring forms present in red blood cells. Some red blood cells contained multiple ring forms. She was transferred to our hospital. On arrival she was intubated and comatose. On physical examination, she was oozing bright red blood from her mouth and catheter sites. Her lab test were significant for hematocrit of 23% platelets of 39,000, prolonged bleeding times, and 3+ hemoglobin and 25 to 50 red blood cells in her urine. Her condition continued to deteriorate, and she had a cardiac arrest from which she could not be resuscitated.

Answer 1

That's hard to answer here. But here is diagnosis information for clinicians from the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/diagnosis_treatment/tx_clinicians.htm

Answer 2

That's severe and complicated malaria, mostly caused by P. falciparum, but sometimes by vivax also. Rings of falciparum are smaller, upto 5 per RBC. Vivax rings are larger, upto 3 per RBC. This case history is most likely to be falciparum malaria.