Introduction The parasitic organisms of the Plasmodium genus cause the life threatening disease

Malaria infection is caused by parasitic protozoan plasmodium. Several species of malaria parasites exist but the most fatal known is plasmodium falciparum. It enters the liver and replicates itself by getting into the red blood cell and ripping its way out when fully matured. It was once thought that the US military got close to completely eradicating the vector mosquito through DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and the parasitic plasmodium with vaccines until they discovered that both are capable of mutating and gained the ability to be resistant to any chemicals scientists could produce (Horizon, 2005).

Malaria has been a major life-threatening disease for thousands of years, and continues to threaten millions of lives around the world. It infects approximately 219 million people each year, mostly poor women and children. What is striking about malaria is the fact that it has the worse effect on those with the least ability to fight the disease. The Republic of Cuba believes that malaria prevention, treatment, and research efforts must be accelerated to eliminate the burden of this disease across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and any country or territory at risk of malaria transmissions.

Plasmodium falciparum is a protozoan parasite. It is unique of the class of Plasmodium that is the foundation and cause malaria in individuals. There are other Plasmodium species that can cause malaria in humans. Nevertheless P. falciparum is the most common, virulent, and deadly. P. falciparum communicable by the female Anopheles mosquito.

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.

Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases

Malaria is spread by the female Anopheles mosquito.When the mosquito bites the malaria parasite is passed into the human bloodstream, infecting them and this works both ways, if a human has previously been given the parasite and a unaffected mosquito bites them, the mosquito will pick up the parasite and spread it further. For the mosquito to survive it the humidity must be high, and the temperature must be between 15°C and below 40°C. Stagnant pools of water allow the mosquito to live. It uses areas like marshes, lakes and river pools to breed. Increasing population growth can encourage people to live closer to affected areas that were previously avoided, such as close to river pools. Normally the

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.

Also, human population movement from higher transmission areas jeopardizes reintroduction and resurgence in malaria-free regions, and in addition has undermined elimination works in the past. For that reason, it is important to understand the patterns of parasite dispersal in order to target control by pinpointing regions where the imported infections originate from and where they play a part in transmission.

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

(Fairhurst RM, Wellems TE. Plasmodium species (Malaria). In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, eds. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases . 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2009: p. 3071-3072)

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.

The plasmodium protist is the building block of one of the deadliest diseases called Malaria, spreading through the bloodstream diseasing organs one by one. Malaria kills around 500,000 to 700,000 people a year, and in 2012 there were 207 million cases of it around the world. This chain of infection, and even death is started through the transmission of the plasmodium protist. It all starts when a specific genus of mosquito makes contact with a human. This genus is called the female Anopheles mosquito. The plasmodium resides by its saliva gland, making an easy escape when the mosquito bites a human host. The plasmodium begins its journey traveling through

There are five types of mosquitos that can carry the disease; P. falciparum, P. Vivax, P. Ovale, P. Knowlesi, and P. Malariae (Marshall & Taylor, 2009). The two diseases that have the most focus are the P. vivax which is most widely contracted, and the P. Falciparum which is the most fatal (Center for Disease Control, 2017). The life cycle of the disease starts with the bite of a mosquito called the anopheles, which transmits the disease. While there are hundreds of different types of mosquitoes anopheles is the only one that carries the parasitic protozoa. The bite of a mosquito injects sporozoites into the blood stream where it travels quickly to the liver since they have a short life span (Frevert, 2004). Once at the liver it infects the liver cells and replicates itself to mature into schizonts which ruptures into merozoites. After replication the merozoites burst from the liver cells into the blood stream and begin to invade the erythrocytes (red blood cells), once in the erythrocytes they again replicate completely filling the cell until the parasite ruptures the erythrocytes and releases toxins and merozoites into the bloodstream. The parasites are then separated into gametocytes (male/female), where they are released by the blood stream as plasmodium which can be acquired from another anopheles mosquito by biting the human host to start the cycle

“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”

About 3.3 billion people, that is about half of the world’s population are at risk of contracting malaria (figure 1). Every year there are 250 million cases of malaria, and nearly 1 million deaths. That amounts to 2,732 deaths per day. Out of those million people that die every year, 800,000 of them are African children under the age of 5. To control malaria three actions need to be taken: insecticides need to be used to decrease the vector population, people have to be educated as to how to prevent the vector from reproducing, and anti-malarial drugs need to be distributed. To understand the vector and what the vector is, scientists had to first discover what the parasite was and how it worked. It was not until the year 1880 that French Physician Charles Laveran discovered that Malaria was caused by a protozoan in the genus Plasmodium (Malaria, 2013)