All about malaria
Malaria is a disease, caused by parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae. It is a serious disease and can be fatal too and is recognized by the patient having high fever and shivering. However, it is preventable.
Each year, the WHO estimates that about 300-500 million people suffer from malaria and over 1 million people die due to it. The US alone has about 1,300 cases of malaria each year.
Cause: Malaria occurs in warm climates where the Anopheles mosquito thrives. They need warmth to grow before they can mature and be transmitted to humans.
How it is transmitted: People get malaria when the female Anopheles mosquito bites them. This mosquito should have been previously infected through a blood taken from an infected person. This infected blood contains microscopic malaria parasites which matures in a week’s time and travels to the mosquito’s salivary glands. When the mosquito draws blood from humans, these parasites get mixed with its saliva and become part of its bite. When in the blood, they travel to the liver and multiply there and can live there for many months and enter the red blood cells. When the red blood cells burst, it results in fever, shivering and flu-like symptoms.
Who can get malaria: People belonging to malaria-rampant countries can get it or anyone who has traveled there.
Symptoms of malaria: Its symptoms include fever and flu, shivering, stiff muscles and joints and extreme fatigue. One may also experience nausea, vomiting and diarrhea with anemia, yellow skin and eyes, or in extreme cases when the kidney fails, one can slip into a coma, or suffer from mental confusion, and this may result in death.
Treatment: Malaria should be treated the moment it is detected or it becomes a great risk to one’s life. With good antimalarial drugs given early on, one can be treated for malaria. The type of drugs depends on the severity of the disease and the length of treatment, apart from the patient’s age, whether pregnant, etc.
Preventing malaria: You can prevent yourself from getting malaria by:
- Taking antimalarial prescription drugs to kill the mosquitoes
- Getting rid of mosquitoes from breeding sites around your home
- Spraying insecticides on the walls of your home to kill them
- Sleeping under a mosquito net that’s treated with insecticide
- Wear insect repellent and long-sleeved shirts when you step out of home
Vaccinations: Right now, there still aren’t any vaccines to cure or prevent malaria for human use.
Scientists realize the need for making a vaccine to cure the millions of people who suffer from and die due to malaria. But experimentation goes on and until then, we must be content with OTC drugs and a shot of quinine.