Introduction: Malaria has been a major health problem of all tropical countries, including India. It has a wide spectrum of clinical signs, symptoms and complications.

Objective: This study was undertaken to study various clinical symptoms, signs and complications of malaria and also to compare the specie–specific complications of malaria.

Material & Methods: This cross sectional observational study was done at a tertiary care hospital in the state of Uttarakhand. It included all cases of acute malaria aged 18 years or more, hospitalized over a period of one year (from April 2015–March 2016). Details regarding clinical profile, biochemical parameters, demography, complications and outcome of each patient were compiled.

Results: Out of 110 cases of acute malaria patients 97 (88%) had Plasmodium vivax infection, one (9%) patient had P. falciparum infection while only 3 (3%) cases had co–infection with both P. vivax and P. falciparum infection.         Thrombocytopenia was observed in 104 (96.5 %) cases followed by anemia in 75 (68%) cases. All the hematological and biochemical parameters were equally distributed in the etiological groups of malaria. Only mean haemoglobin levels and mean total leucocytes count differed significantly between these groups. Acute kidney injury, liver dysfunction, shock and the need for intensive care and hemodialysis were comparable in the three etiological groups. Two patients succumbed to death while one patient left against medical advice.

Conclusion: This study throws light on varied complications of acute malaria and that it can affect any system of the body. This study has re–emphasized the fact that P. vivax malaria, long considered as “benign” malaria is now an important cause of complicated malaria.