This complication is suspected in cases of oliguria and confirmed if serum creatinine is higher than 3.0 mg/dL. Bacterial sepsis, dehydration, shock and past history of chronic renal failure should be routinely searched in the differential diagnosis. It was also reported in the Brazilian literature [38, 48] , but in one study one case was found in a patient with arterial hypertension, what could be a triggering condition [45] . Despite not being frequent in Brazil, Plasmodium malariae is found in some scattered areas [120] , and as a potential cause of glomerulonephritis [121] , this parasite should be ruled out by molecular biology tools whenever acute renal failure is detected in a malarial patient with vivax infection, due to similarities of these two species at routine optical microscopy.