Diseases Associated With Poverty : Malaria

Malaria has been in existence for thousands of years. Many historical records show that it has affected human civilization greatly by plaguing and causing mass death. The earliest record can be traced back to 2700 BC in China (Cox, 2002). It has been long associated with swamps and insects for hundreds of years but often believed to be the air from swamps causing the plague. The term malaria rooted from two Italian words ‘mala’ and ‘aria’ which literally means bad air. Humanity did not know the true nature of the long thought disease until 1894 when a Scottish physician, Sir Ronald Ross, discovered that it was actually the parasite in mosquito that is causing the malaria.

falciparum, whereas in most other countries with malaria transmission, other, less virulent plasmodial species predominate. Almost every malarial death is caused by P. falciparum.[ Malaria is caused by an infection with protozoa of the genus Plasmodium. The name malaria, from the Italian mala aria, meaning "bad air", comes from the linkage suggested by Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1717) of malaria with the poisonous vapours of swamps. This species name comes from the Latin falx, meaning "sickle", and parere meaning "to give birth". The organism itself was first seen by Laveran on November 6, 1880 at a military hospital in Constantine, Algeria, when he discovered a microgametocyte exflagellating. Patrick Manson (1894) hypothesised that mosquitoes could transmit malaria. This hypothesis was experimentally confirmed independently by Giovanni Battista Grassi and Ronald Ross in 1898. Grassi (1900) proposed an exerythrocytic stage in the life cycle, later confirmed by Short, Garnham, Covell and Shute (1948), who found Plasmodium vivax in the human liver.

Globalization involves the movement of people, food, goods from one place to another. And in the process of countries integrating, people and goods move from one location to another. In as much as there is positive impact for people, goods and services to move from one country to another. There are chances that the people, goods and service in a county can be infected and taken across the border to another country. In the course of globalization people move from one country to another and they might have contacted diseases or the product that they are carrying across the border. Diseases such as AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria are the top among the list of the disease that is usually carried by people. But just as globalization increases the frequency and ease with which diseases can move around the world, it also can improve access to the medicines, medical information, and training that can help treat or cure these diseases. Drug companies and governments now have the ability to ship drugs to remote parts of the world affected by outbreaks of diseases. There are various options that can be used to lower the spread of global disease. Most countries usually have screening borders to check the people, food and

Mosquitoes pass malaria to humans through their salivary glands. Once the parasites have entered the blood stream, they go to the liver. In the liver they mature and undergo reproduction, forming merozoites. These merozoites enter the blood stream and inject themselves into red blood cells. Once inside the blood cells, they reproduce rapidly and within forty-eight to seventy-two hours, the blood cell bursts, releasing hemoglobin into the blood stream. It is the destruction of these blood cells and the hemoglobin released into the blood stream that actually causes most of the symptoms.

Malaria is a disease that affects nearly 600 million people and causes more than a million deaths a year, the most coming from children under five. This disease is regularly found in more than 100 countries around the world and affects 40% of the world’s population. It is most commonly transmitted by an infected Anopheles mosquito. The most deadly form of malaria is known as Plasmodium falciparum because almost all deaths from malaria are caused by this specific one. Some of the symptoms that are affiliated with this strand of malaria are the destruction of red blood cells along with complications with the kidneys, lungs, and brain. In more serious cases, it can cause permanent neurological effects and even death. As the Nobel Assembly said at the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, “Diseases caused by parasites have plagued humankind for a millennium and constitute a major global health problem. In particular, parasitic diseases affect the world’s poorest populations and represent a huge barrier to improving human health and wellbeing”. Youyou Tu, one of the winners of the prize, discovered Artemisinin, “a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria by killing the malaria parasites an early stage of their development.”

Malaria has been a huge problem among many developing nations over the past century. The amount of people in the entire world that die from malaria each year is between 700,000 and 2.7 million. 75% of these deaths are African children (Med. Letter on CDC & FDA, 2001). 90% of the malaria cases in the world are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Once again, the majority of these deaths are of children (Randerson, 2002). The numbers speak for themselves. Malaria is a huge problem and needs to be dealt with immediately.

Associated with these diseases is, globalization. With globalization all around, there has been a sharp increase in global commerce/business and circulation of people.

A general factors that effects the transmission of disease is the weather of countries. For example, in Africa the weather is really hot which means mosquitos are able to survive through bites? Malaria would be spread through the bites of the mosquitos. Therefore, many people that are suffering from malaria in Africa spend most of their income of treatments. Even though malaria has been eliminated from temperature climates, it will still affect the sub-tropical and tropical regions. Malaria is one of the major public health challenges due to poor counties. However, people that have high incomes will be able to prevent themselves rather than suffering from the disease. Not being able to pay for vaccine is the biggest factor as it affects

Plasmodium a single-cell parasitic protozoa is transmitted to humans via the bite of an infected female Anopheles species mosquitoes. This can lead to potentially fatal parasites, rapidly multiplying in the liver attacking red blood cells resulting in symptoms arising from cycles of fevers, chills, severe headaches, vomiting, jaundice and diarrhoea. One major disastrous symptom includes sweats accompanied by anaemia, cause damages to vital organs and interruption of blood supply to the brain, which could result in incurable illness leading to fatal death. In very severe cases it can cause seizures, comas or even death. Symptoms usually present between ten to fifteen days after the initial infection. Unlike other diseases, Malaria can represent in people months or even years later. Death rate is approximately 1%-5% due to the spread of Malaria in Afghanistan, affecting each and everyone.

Malaria, on the other hand, is a disease caused by a parasite that spreads around from different vectors and hosts. There are three factors to the spread of malaria: the vector, the host and the pathogen. According

From the beginning of human history, we, as a species, have made an extreme effort to adapt. Through famine, drought, and war, we miraculously found a way to survive 200,000 years and dominate almost every continent (Shillington 13). One of the key methods to our survival throughout history is our understanding of diseases. Though it would take us tens of thousands of years to understand exactly what diseases are, we did notice that certain areas were more likely to make people sick and that these places were to be avoided at all costs. A prime example of this is the avoidance of swamps in early Africa due to sleeping sickness. Spread by the tsetse fly, sleeping sickness is a disease fatal to humans as well as livestock. When it was noticed that these blood sucking flies rarely left swampy areas, early humans learned to avoid these them, which in turn lowered the amount of deaths cause by sleeping sickness (Shillington 26). However, not all diseases are solved simply by moving locations. In modern day Africa, one of the deadliest diseases is malaria. Being carried by mosquitos, malaria can exist almost anywhere on the continent. According the Doctor’s Without Boarders, a child in Africa dies of malaria every minute (Doctors Without Boarders). Though larger countries have the ability and resources to fight malaria, younger countries are finding difficulties eliminating this disease. One of these

One major change in technology has been the increase in international travel. According to Weiss and McMichael (2004), “The speed of modern air travel works wonders for the dispersal of infectious diseases” (p. S74). Church (2004) adds to this by stating, “From an infectious disease perspective, air travel makes the world a global village because ‘microbial traffic’ follows the human host” (p. 564). Smolinski, Hamburg, and Lederberg (2003) explain that international travel now means that infectious diseases have no borders and has played a major role in spreading infectious diseases across the world. They also expand on the fact that the travel process and all the interactions that occur while traveling aid in the spread of diseases globally. Economic globalization and technology has also led to many changes in agriculture that are contributing to the rise of infectious diseases. Smolinski, Hamburg, and Lederberg (2003) state, “International trade in food and animal agriculture has increased markedly as an important aspect of globalization. The United States and other countries now enjoy more goods from more countries than ever before” (p. 68). Church (2004) explains that this is a problem by writing, “Food-borne and waterborne illnesses also may be imported from other countries” (p. 568). He also brings up the problem that the new practice of mass-production means that contamination and outbreaks now affect many more people. Weiss and McMichael (2004) expand on this by explaining that the agricultural practice of intense, single-species farming will also mean larger-scale epidemics when problems occur. Lastly, Lashley (2006) adds to these ideas by discussing how globalization has led to an increased demand of exotic foods year-round and this demand brings with it new infectious diseases. Not only do technological and economic growth contribute to the rise of

Some also argued that globalization leads to the incursion of communicable diseases. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS can be easily spread by travelers to the remotest corner of the world. A newly infected disease that is communicable is also easily spread by travelers. This causes health issues not only in one country but also the others that are connected to it. Much time is also need to develop the cure for the

Malaria. Our 130 million year old enemy. Malaria has been around since the dawn of time and just like the evolution of humans, the disease evolved over time (Malaria.com, 2011). Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a specific parasite called Plasmodium, and it is transmitted to people through the bites of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Plasmodium is a unique parasite because of its structure-it is a single celled organism that multiples in our red blood cells (Canada.com, 2016). The Plasmodium parasite has 4 species which are known to cause the disease in humans, these being: P. Vivax, P. Falciparum, P. Ovale, and P. Malariae. Specifically, P. Vivax, and P. Falciparum are the 2 most common types of parasites to cause the

Figure 1: Malaria endemic areas around the world. Areas where malaria transmission occurs are in red, places that are at risk and malaria transmission occurs infrequently are in yellow, and places in grey is where there is no malaria present (Malaria, 2010).