Causes And Treatment Of Malaria

Brian, G, Y., Greenwood, D, A., Fidock, Dennis, E, K., Stefan, H, I. Kappe, P., Alonso, L., Frank, H and Collins, P (2008) “Malaria progress and prospects for eradication.” Journal Clinical Investiment. 118: 1266-1276.

The symptoms vary because patients are diagnosed with having either uncomplicated or severe malaria. This is due to the fact that different kinds of malaria range in severity. For instance, ,P. falciparum and P. knowlesi infections can cause rapidly progressive severe illness and lead to death death while the other species, P. malariae, P. vivax, or P. ovale are less likely to cause such severe manifestations. Furthermore, P. vivax and P. ovale infections also require treatment for the hypnozoite forms that remain dormant in the liver and can cause a relapsing infection. Finally, P. falciparum and P. vivax species have varying drug resistance patterns in different geographic regions. For P. falciparum and P. knowlesi infections, the urgent initiation of appropriate therapy is especially

There have been many attempts at preventing malaria, none of which have been very successful. These have usually involved protecting human beings from mosquitoes, the dreaded carriers

Malaria is considered one of the most serious and life-threatening public health problems in the world. According to World Health Organization, more than 3 billion people live in areas classified as being at risk from malaria, with nearly 200 million cases.1 Approximately, 750,000 deaths occur every year, primarily among children, due to malaria and its complications.1 Children less than 5 years of age are more vulnerable to be affected by malaria.2 In 2015, about 438,000 malaria deaths were reported, of which estimated 69% were children under 5 years of age.2

Quinine seems like the easy way out, we could treat everyone to a gin and tonic and life would be great and malaria would be gone. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. The anti-malarial properties of quinine are unknown, and there are adverse side affects such as impaired hearing, diarrhea, psychosis, vertigo, and the list goes on. This being said, it is important in the malaria world because it can be used alongside of doxycycline, tetracycline, and clindamycin to treat malaria. This treatment is much more costly than the monotherapy use of quinine, so quinine is still used as a primary treatment in sub-Saharan Africa and other undeveloped endemic areas. Quinine is used alone mainly in uncomplicated malaria with cure rates after seven days upwards of 85%, but when used along with tetracycline or clindamycin the cure rates improve to upwards of 98%. These results do seem quite

Chloroquine (Aralen): The most commonly prescribed antimalarial medication in countries where there are no drug resistant strains of malaria. This drug is taken once a week, from one to two weeks prior to travel, until four weeks after you

After infection malaria can sit dormant for up to a month while other species of the parasite will will cause a shorter period of dormancy, typically lasting from a couple of days to seven days. After the dormant or incubation periods have finished is when the disease starts its symptoms. Diagnosis is confirmed usually by manual microscope blood sample analysis. While there are a number of different kinds of anti-malarials, one kind, called “chloroquine” is mainly used. If treated urgently and correctly, the prognosis of malaria is very good for most of the plasmodium types. P. falciparum can be a bit of a problem, but is also usually not fatal. The reason malaria is so fatal is because people who contract, especially in the third world, do not always have a means to seek medical care.

According to the health and environment, Malaria is a universal contagious disease and also a tremendous social complication all around the world, especially in South Asia, and Africa. Approximately, 3 billion of the community are in danger of infection in 109 regions. Every year, there is a prediction of 250 million compacts of miasm prominent to 1 million annihilations, particularly adolescents under 5 years old. The structure that causes the greatest unhealthy form of paludism is a imperceptible parasite that is known as the “Plasmodium falciparum”.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease that is caused by plasmodium parasites transmitted from female mosquitos when they bite a human. The plasmodium parasite can also be transmitted by blood products like unclean needles or unscreened blood. There are five parasite species (Plasmodium, falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae) that cause malaria in humans, and two of these species, P. falciparum and P. vivax, are the greatest threat (see Figure 1). The severity of malaria is based on the species of plasmodium. The symptoms people experience include chills, fever, and sweating usually occurring within a few weeks after being bitten. In the United States, it is a very rare disease with fewer than 20,000 cases per year, and is treatable by a medical professional. However, Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 88% of malaria cases and 90% of malaria deaths. P. falciparum is the most prevalent parasite on the African continent and is responsible for most malaria-related deaths globally. P. vivax is more widely distributed than P. falciparum and predominates in most countries outside of Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, resistance of P. falciparum started in medicines, such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). Drug resistance has been implicated in the spread of malaria to new areas and re-emergence of malaria in areas where the disease had been eradicated. Population movement has introduced resistant parasites to areas previously free of drug resistance. Resistance is

Malaria is a protozoa disease transmitted by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. It is the most important of the parasitic diseases of humans. Malaria transmission see in 107 countries, and killed more than 3 million people each year (According to World Health Organization 209 report). Sub-Saharan countries are the most malaria affected area in the world. It is transmitted from person to person by the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria is most common in poor and deprived areas. The principal determinants of the epidemiology of malaria are the number (density), the human-biting habits, and the longevity of the anopheline mosquito vectors. There are four species of the genes Plasmodium types of Malaria, which are plasmodium vivax, falciparum, and ovule; among them vivax is most common and predominantly found in Central America. P. ovule is mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, but in recent year studies show that there is much less common. Even though there is a promising signs that shows a control of diseases transmission more than 50%, still remains a heavy burden on tropical communities, a threat to non-endemic countries, and a danger to travelers.

Malaria is a disease whose effects can be felt worldwide. Not only does the disease touch adults, unfortunately the major population affected by the disease is children under the age of 5yrs old and pregnant women. Malaria is the third largest killer of children worldwide. The number of malaria related deaths per years has decreased through the years form 300 million cases worldwide in 1999 to 198 million cases in 2013, also malaria related deaths have decreased by a sum of 60% from the year of 2000 to 2015, however the number of deaths (438,000 in 2014) is extremely high and can be drastically lowered or even diminished completely with the right resources. These resources have proven to be available and successful in some particularly wealthy areas of the world including Brazil, Eritrea, and Vietnam, yet malaria is still very prevalent and fatal in others namely Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda. The question is why? What roles does government play in this international issue? What steps can be taken to rid the world of malaria completely?

Malaria has been plaguing societies for years. Only recently has the Unites States and other countries been able to make it a rare instance due to control of mosquitos. The symptoms of malaria was first described in Chinese writings, the Nei Ching (2700 BC). It became widely known in Greece, Hippocrates noted the principle symptoms. In the Susruta, a Sanskrit medical treatise, the symptoms of malaria were described and attributed to certain bites of insects. Some Roman writers thought the diseases were attributed to swampy areas. In the New World, Indians told Spanish missionaries of the medical bark they used to treat the fevers of those infected with malaria. With the bark it actually cured the wife of the Viceroy of Peru. After this the bark from that tree was called Cinchona after the countess. The antimalarial, quinine, derives from this bark and

Treatment of malaria is largely dependent upon the severity of the case. At this current point in time there is still no actual vaccine for malaria so it is instead treated. In the un-advanced, uncomplicated stages, it tends to simply be treated with anti-malarial oral medications. These include Chloroquine and Artemisinin, with the most common being artemisinin. This particular drug is the most effective and has shown to have significant improvements in conditions in just one to three

According to the CDC, “Malaria is an extreme and from time to time lethal sickness because of a parasite that typically infects a certain species of mosquitoes which feeds on human blood. Four varieties of malaria parasites infect people; Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae. Similarly, P. knowlesi is a type of specie of malaria that infects macaques in Southeast Asia and additionally can be a zoonotic infection; transferring from an animal to human.” Plasmodium falciparum is the form of malaria that frequently causes severe and life-threatening malaria. It’s not very unusual in the south of the Sahara wasteland in Africa. People, who are closely exposed to the bites of mosquitoes infected with P. falciparum, are prone to dying from malaria. Human beings who have little immunity to malaria, together with younger kids and pregnant girls or tourists coming from regions without malaria, are more likely to have a worse prognosis. Due to malaria arising in the south of the Sahara in Africa, concentrated deaths arise in children below five years of age. Poor human beings living in rural regions, who lack access to physical care, are at greater risk for this disorder.

In terms of preventative treatment, malarial prophylaxis may be suppressive or causal with the primary distinction being the former affects blood stage infections only while the latter can affect parasites in both the liver and blood (Lopez Del Prado et al., 2014). Some examples of suppressive prophylaxis include doxycycline, mefloquine and chloroquine while causal prophylaxis may be drugs like malarone and primaquine. Chloroquine is typically used in the treatment of non-falciparum malaria as resistance has been spreading especially in endemic areas with previously high use. The specific regimen used and its dosage depends on the individual taking said medication and the region to which they travel (Lopez Del Prado et al., 2014).