preview

Malaria Essay

Good Essays

Malaria

Malaria parasites have been with us since the beginning of time, and fossils of mosquitoes up to thirty million years old show that malaria’s vector has existed for just as long. The parasites causing malaria are highly specific, with man as the only host and mosquitoes as the only vector. Every year,
300,000,000 people are affected by malaria, and while less than one percent of these people die, there are still an estimated 1,500,000 deaths per year. While
Malaria was one of the first infectious diseases to be treated successfully with a drug, scientist are still looking for a cure or at least a vaccination today
(Cann, 1996). Though many people are aware that malaria is a disease, they are
unaware …show more content…

Here, sexual forms of the parasite develop in the stomach of the Anopheles mosquito completing the parasites life cycle (Herman, 1996).
People infected malaria have several symptoms including fever, chills, headaches, weakness, and an enlarged spleen (Herman, 1996). The amount of time for symptoms to appear differs depending on the form of the parasite. Those infected with Plasmodium falciparum experience symptoms after about twenty-four hours, those infected with Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale produce symptoms after a forty-eight hour interval, and after seventy-two hours
Plasmodium malariae begin causing fever and chills (Cann, 1996).
Most malaria cases seem to cluster in the tropical climate areas extending into the subtropics, and malaria is especially endemic in Africa. In
1990 eighty percent of all reported cases were in Africa, while the remainder of most cases came from nine countries: India, Brazil, Afghanistan, Sri-Lanka,
Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Globally, the disease circulates in almost one hundred countries causing up to 1,500,000 deaths annually (Cann, 1996).
Because there is no definite cure for malaria, scientists are trying their hardest to contain the parasite to where it now exists. The range of a vector from a suitable habitat is fortunately limited to a maximum

Get Access