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Malaria Is A Horrible Disease

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Malaria is a horrible disease and can sometimes even be lethal. This disease is caused by a mosquito, the mosquito feeds on humans and bite them. The parasite that causes this horrible disease is Plasmodium falciparum.
Malaria is one of the most severe public health problems worldwide. It is the leading cause of death in many developing countries. Young children and pregnant woman are the groups that are the most affected by this disease. Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for causing over a million deaths each year and between 300-500 cases. In total, that is over 3.3 billion people who are at risk from malaria. This is almost half of the world’s population (World Health Organization’s World Malaria Report, 2013). Out of those …show more content…

The parasite then reproduces when it enters into the mosquitos gut, and then spreads to the salivary glands. So in other words, when a mosquito bites the skin of an affected human, with Plasmodium falciparum the parasite enters the blood by letting go the salivary glands of the mosquito. At first the Plasmodium falciparum is in sporozoite form, the sporozoites then make their way to the liver and kidneys where they infect liver and kidney cells and quickly multiply. They then are released back into the blood as merozoites, where they then infect red blood cells and reproduce. As the cycle continues on and on the infection spreads from humans to humans by the mosquitos (CDC, 2012). An interesting fact, Plasmodium falciparum also has an effect on the mosquitoes that carry it. Studies have shown that behavioral changes happen in mosquitoes as well. A mosquito that has the parasite is more inclined to feed off a larger number of individuals in a night and suck more blood in a single feeding than the mosquitos without the parasite. This allows Plasmodium falciparum to spread quickly through mosquitoes and then can infect a greater number of individuals (Koella, 1998).
The parasite Plasmodium falciparum is contracted by the Anopheles mosquito (CDC, 2015. Only Anopheles mosquitos can transmit this particular virus that causes malaria. They must have been infected through a precious blood meal taken from an infected person. When the

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