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Malaria Is A Mosquito Borne Disease

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Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite.

Malaria symptoms include fever and flu-like illness, including shaking chills, headache, muscle aches, and tiredness. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may also occur. Malaria may cause anemia and jaundice (yellow coloring of the skin and eyes) because of the loss of red blood cells. Infection with one type of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, if not promptly treated, may cause kidney failure, seizures, mental confusion, coma, and death.

Each year 350 to 500 million cases of malaria occur world-wide, and over one million people die, most of them young children.

The Anopheles Malaria Mosquito.

Where malaria disease is found depends mainly on climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, and rainfall. The main areas where malaria disease is found are; Africa, Madagascar, India and South America. Malaria is transmitted in tropical and subtropical areas, where the host mosquito, of the genus Anopheles, is able to survive and multiply. There are approximately 430 Anopheles mosquito species, only 30 to 40 of which transmit the malaria parasite.

Only in areas where the malaria parasites can complete its growth cycle in the mosquitoes can humans be infected. There are four species of malaria parasite that can infect humans they are; Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae. The time required for development of the parasite in the mosquito (the extrinsic incubation period) ranges from 10 to 21 days,

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