What does malarial paroxysm mean?

Malarial paroxysm are the different stages a person feel during malarial infection. The cold stage, hot/heat stage, and the sweating stage. These different stages have certain characteristics. The cold stage lasts for about an hour and indicates intense shivering, the hot/heat stage where a person feels extreme heat and dryness and also has the longest duration (last up to 6 hours), and finally the sweating stage where there a decline in the temperature due to sweating and lasts up to 4 hours. The duration and the symptoms vary according to the type of malaria.