Literature Review On Malaria

Malaria is a very contagious parasite transmitted through mosquitoes to humans. Those at risk are individuals living in areas conducive to the breeding of mosquitoes, especially those that allow the mosquitoes to complete their growth cycle. Everyone is at risk

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.

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.

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

Background - Malaria is a water borne disease. It is spread by a parasite-carrying mosquito. It kills many people and reduces a country 's capacity to develop. There are different strategies to combat malaria. Around half the population is at risk of malaria and this disease is active in 106 counties across Africa, Asian and the Americas (see source 3). the global annual mortality from malaria is between 1.5 - 3 million deaths, or between 4000 and 8000 each day. Developing countries are most vulnerable to Malaria and as shown on source 2 Malaria has been spread across many various other countries including in Europe, but these countries have eradicated Malaria.

Even though malaria is preventable and cure able, the mosquito born disease killed 584,000 people in 2013, with 90% of the deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the victims, 83% were children below the age of five.

Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans. People who get malaria are typically very sick with high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness.. In 2015 an estimated 212 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and 429,000 people died, mostly children in the African Region. Although malaria can be a deadly disease, illness and death from malaria can usually be prevented. In Malawi, malaria is very common because

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.

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

Malaria can be treated using both vaccines and other prescription drugs. In developed countries this has effectively negated Malaria as a public health threat. For instance, in the United States there are only 1500 cases of malaria per year, all of which are linked to travel to tropical regions in Africa and South America. Unfortunately, less developed regions do not have the proper infrastructure to produce, store or distribute these drugs. Third-world efforts are focused on prevention rather than treatment. The majority of Malaria funding is allocated to two different prevention concepts, Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN’s) and Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS). Nets are made of finely woven fabrics which provide a physical barrier between infected mosquitoes and humans. Mosquitoes which land on the nets absorb insecticide which kills them. Nets can be costly, and have a high rate of misuse, as many villagers use them to fish. The alternative to ITN’s is the practice of Indoor Residual Spraying of insecticides. This is very effective in sprayed areas, but is stationary and poisonous to the

Malaria has become a common name throughout the world. While significant efforts have been made since antimalarial treatments in the 1940’s, the disease still continues as an endemic around the globe. Malaria is a global public health issue, with epidemiological methods of tracking patterns, causes, and effects of health outcomes to continuously work toward protecting and saving lives. While current interventions have impacted the rates of malaria, advances have been made to include spatial targeting for predicting risk in certain locations, methods of using microbes to eliminate mosquito prevalence, and opportunities for vaccines to reduce incidence rates can be promising practices to reduce the

Malaria is mostly affected in Africa due to combination of factors in that country. Due to their mosquito’s type and bacteria carrying. There local weather condition allows transmission to occur all year long. In most cases Malaria is less chance to cause death but if not diagnosed on time can lead to death especially in children.

Malaria is a detriment to the country of Africa and after much research I have found a plethora of information on the malaria epidemic on Africa and how truly devastating it is. Throughout this research paper I will touch on everything related to malaria in Africa including economic to personal problems that may relate to the state of the country. In the first paragraph I will go into depth on when this outbreak began and the whereabouts of its origin. Also If anyone is to blame for this horrid plague like virus that has spread throughout many poor countries life africa. Then I will dive into more in depth issues connecting malaria to the conditions in Africa.

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)

Malaria is one of the ten most common, yet deadly diseases in the world. It is a parasitic disease spread by the bite of Anopheles mosquito, which is active between dusk and dawn. Malaria occurs in over 100 countries and territories.