Malaria No More : Malaria

Ecological factors that encourage the Anopheles mosquito, and thus also encourage the prevalence of malaria include: being near the equator, densely populated areas, warmer temperatures, standing water, maintaining water for irrigation and deforested areas. (Holy p.1)

It tropical and sub-tropical climates temperature, humidity, and rainfall work together to create a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are a host for communicable diseases one in particular is called malaria. Malaria is a parasitic disease that infects a particular type of mosquito, Anopheles mosquitoes, which feeds on humans. People who get malaria are typically very sick with high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness. Although malaria can be a deadly disease, illness and death from malaria can usually be prevented (Global Health - Division of

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.

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

Malaria is spread by the female Anopheles mosquito.When the mosquito bites the malaria parasite is passed into the human bloodstream, infecting them and this works both ways, if a human has previously been given the parasite and a unaffected mosquito bites them, the mosquito will pick up the parasite and spread it further. For the mosquito to survive it the humidity must be high, and the temperature must be between 15°C and below 40°C. Stagnant pools of water allow the mosquito to live. It uses areas like marshes, lakes and river pools to breed. Increasing population growth can encourage people to live closer to affected areas that were previously avoided, such as close to river pools. Normally the

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 or other similar diseases like malaria has been recognized and encountered by humans for more than 4,000 years. Malaria is caused by the genus Plasmodium parasites, which enter the human body and are transmitted to people through the bite of a mosquito infected with the parasite (Q&A, Malaria). Once the parasite enters the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver and then infect red blood cells. The malaria parasite was first discovered on November 6, 1880, by a French army surgeon named Charles Louis Al phonse Laveran. While stationed in

In the seventeenth century a group of Jesuits brought back tree back that had quinine in it from Peru. This proved to cure malaria and was a major step in malaria treatment. The complexity of the malaria parasite is astounding, as it has six separate cycles in which half occur in the mosquito and half occur in the human body. Due to this extremely complex life cycle, there is no easy way out to target one point, and to fully eradicate malaria the entire global population would have to be on anti-malarial pills for the entire life cycle of a mosquito.

About 90% of cases are in tropical regions of Africa. About 95% of deaths are Africans under the age 5. The most common form of malaria is the product of a nefarious partnership between the Anopheles Gambia mosquito and the Plasmodium Falciparum parasite. Mosquitoes pick up the parasite by feeding on an infected human host. The parasite lives in the mosquitoe 's gut until the mosquito bites another human. (Sheiban et al., 2006).

When a child get the malaria infection it can cause acute infection, which frequently presents as seizures or coma (cerebral malaria), may kill a child directly and quickly. Recurrent malaria infections add to the growth of severe anemia, which significantly increases the risk of death. Also, people living with AIDS/HIV have a much higher risk of being infected with malaria, vulnerable to recurrent episodes and increased progression of AIDS/HIV. So what is being done to help treat and prevent future infections among children in Africa?

Insecticide-treated nets have been experimented in Africa and have proved to be successful in completely cutting the threat of malaria within Africa by 50% (NFL 3). The fact that even a single percept is dropping in the threat of malaria is reason enough to allow such an innovation to be implemented against the disease in Africa. However, to implement insecticide-treated nets, it is also important to ensure that such nets are distributed without corruption or biased opinions within the region (Jr. 13). Once this method is applied, no matter how costly it may prove to be, it is sure to cure the repeated and drastic problem of

There are four species in the Plasmodium Genus that affect humans: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae. What people did not know then, was how the protozoan got from

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.