Malari A Treatable And Preventable Disease Essay

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.

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

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.

Parental attitudes and beliefs towards children under five years of age receiving ACT anti-malarial treatment.

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 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 is an infectious disease carried by mosquitos which is endemic to many tropical and subtropical regions, predominantly Northern Africa. Since 1980, data has been systematically collected in an attempt to expose true Global mortality rates; revealing both positive and negative fluctuations. However since

Despite the significant gains made in reducing malaria in Ghana, this disease remains a major public heath

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) states that it is important to address Malaria because as earlier stated, it effects 3.2 billion people, which means that almost half of the world’s population is at risk. Malaria is also a huge cause of death worldwide because in developing countries with warm climates, it is hard for them to get the proper resources they need in order to cure the disease. Although it is hard to find someone with Malaria in the U.S., it is very common in warm developing countries mostly because that is where the Anopheles mosquitos thrive the best. Therefore, the main reason for Malaria is the lack of resources and knowledge from these developing countries. Because they are developing countries with little money, it is hard

The Research Center for Human Development in Dakar constructed a program in order to estimate the nationwide burden of malaria in all regions. They led the Senegalese survey effort to collect rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and Blood smears of a representative random sample of 320 clusters and 9600 households throughout Senegal (Giardina et al., 2012). Geographically, those from the Southeastern region possess the greatest risk of contracting the malarial parasites (Figure 1). This is significant because this region is extremely rural with the least accessibility to hospitals and clinics. This region also has the highest amount of rainfall which facilitates reproduction in the mosquito population (Littrell et al., 2013). The northern region of the country has the lowest rates. This is given its proximity to the dry Sahara Desert whose climate is much less conducive to breeding mosquitos.

“Malaria has serious economic impacts in Africa (and other countries), slowing economic growth and development and perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty. Malaria is truly a disease of poverty — afflicting primarily the poor who tend to live in malaria-prone rural areas in poorly-constructed dwellings that offer few, if any, barriers against mosquitoes (UNICEF, December 24 2013).” This quote shows how malaria affects countries economically and contributes to a depressing cycle that does not help to develop or improve developing countries. Worldwide, countries that very rarely experience malaria cases are contributing a lot of time and money to other places in order to help lower the death rate of malaria and develop a cure and/or vaccine for the deadly disease. In most malaria-ridden places, the government is

Medical treatment for malaria is available and the disease is curable if promptly diagnosed and treated well. This is crucial because those who have malaria parasites available for mosquitoes to feed on are perpetuating the spread of the disease. However, if these people are treated with the appropriate drugs, the parasites disappear from their bloodstream. This helps to reduce the transmission of the disease. Unfortunately, not everyone is responsive to drug treatments for malaria and thus a variety of alternatives need to be available. Not everyone with malaria parasites in their bloodstream shows the symptoms of malaria and the disease itself is becoming resistant to some of the drugs used to treat

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)

This article is important as it assesses the progress made in the 3 years from 2010 -2014 in malaria elimination in south Africa, while highlighting challenges and suggesting priorities for moving the malaria program towards elimination. Although South Africa has made progress since adopting an elimination agenda, there are number of challenges that have been identified in the efforts toward malaria elimination. Over the review period annual spray coverage did not reach the 90 % coverage of recommended target, with information gaps identified in parasite prevalence, artemether‑lumefantrine therapeutic utilization, asymptomatic/sub‑patent carriage, drug efficacy, vector distribution and insecticide resistance. The author recommends that the Cross‑border initiatives with neighboring countries should be established since malaria importation poses a real threat to the country’s elimination. provincial programs are adequately funded and resourced to effectively conduct the targeted elimination activities, informed by current vector/parasite distribution and resistance data. More sensitive methods to detect sub‑patent infections, primaquine as a transmission‑blocking drug, and alternative vector control methods need to be investigated. Knowledge gaps among malaria health workers and affected communities should be