Malaria is regarded as one of the world's deadliest tropical parasitic diseases. It claims more lives than any other communicable disease except tuberculosis. In Africa and other developing countries, it also accounts for millions of dollars in medical costs. Malaria, however, is a curable disease if promptly diagnosed and adequately treated.
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the parasite plasmodium. In recent years, most cases in the U.S. have been in people who have acquired the disease after travelling to tropical and sub-tropical areas. Over 200 million cases worldwide are reported each year.
Estimates of deaths caused by malaria exceed 1 million each year, with the majority being African children. Other groups at risk
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Areas Stricken with the Disease
Malaria strikes poverty-stricken with the hardest blow. Malaria prevalent areas include some of the world's poorest nations. In Africa, medical costs and related expenses have been estimated at 1-5% gross domestic product.
Farming communities are particularly affected as well. In rural areas, the rainy season is a time of intense agricultural activity, when poor families earn most of their income. When malaria strikes at this time, these families are unable to make a living.
Malaria and Children
Malaria claims the life of a child every 30 seconds. This disease has reached epidemic proportions in many regions of the world, and continues to grow unchecked. Malaria kills 3,000 children under five years of age every day. This rate exceeds the mortality toll from AIDS.
Young African are chronic victims of malaria, suffering an average of six bouts a year. Too often, severely afflicted children die less than 72 hours after developing the symptoms. Of the children who survive, malaria also drains vital nutrients, impairing their physical and intellectual development.
Malaria is also particularly dangerous pregnant women. It causes severe anemia, and is a major factor contributing to maternal deaths in malaria infected areas. Pregnant mothers who have malaria and are HIV-positive are more likely to pass on their HIV status to the unborn child.
Economic Costs
The estimated economic costs of malaria are enormous.
Malaria is a disease characterized by fever and flu like illness that according to the CDC “if not treated can lead to jaundice, kidney failure, seizures, mental confusion, coma, and death” (CDC p.2. There are four types of malaria: Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae with the most common type being plasmodium falciparum. (CDC p.1) ).. This disease can only be transmitted by an interaction of blood as the parasite lives in the red blood cells of the infected host individual. This can be due to blood transfusions, sharing of syringes or by its common vector, the Anopheles mosquito.Because of its vector being a mosquito malaria is common in areas with warm temperatures and causes the most damage in poor developing
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans. People who get malaria are typically very sick with high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness.. In 2015 an estimated 212 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and 429,000 people died, mostly children in the African Region. Although malaria can be a deadly disease, illness and death from malaria can usually be prevented. In Malawi, malaria is very common because
Malaria, on the other hand, was far off more deadly then Yellow fever for it consisted of parasites (Malaria). An engineer once quoted “If we could control malaria, I would be less anxious about other diseases. If we cannot control malaria, our mortality is going to very heavy” (American Canal Construction). Consequently, these infections developed in mosquito salivary glands as well and reproduce in the liver (Malaria). Above all, this incubation period could last for months to a year at a time (Malaria). When the parasites leave the liver they reenter the bloodstream where they are able to infect red blood cells to reproduce once again until the cell bursts (Malaria). As a result, it caused anemia and jaundice from the lack of blood cells (Malaria). Other symptoms include seizures, confusion, coma and death (Malaria).
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
Haiti has made the news multiple times, especially for the earthquake and the devastation afterward. I chose to look at the different health burdens in Haiti to see what the health is like now after some time since the earthquake. The health burden that I chose to look into further is malaria. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 17,662 cases of malaria in 2014, which is a decrease (World Health Organization, 2016). Haiti has an initiative to eliminate malaria by 2020, however at this time Haiti is “experience a greater burden of both transmission and disease” (Frederick et al., 2016, p. 1).
There have been many attempts at preventing malaria, none of which have been very successful. These have usually involved protecting human beings from mosquitoes, the dreaded carriers
So then when they do get malaria they also don’t have the money for proper treatment. Then there is also the problem of no one wanting to donate to help find a cure to the disease.
“Malaria kills half a million people each year … [with a hefty] price tag for
Malaria is a very contagious parasite transmitted through mosquitoes to humans. Those at risk are individuals living in areas conducive to the breeding of mosquitoes, especially those that allow the mosquitoes to complete their growth cycle. Everyone is at risk
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
Most widespread areas are in the tropics, where malaria is often a major cause of
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. Widespread regional and international efforts to address Malaria began in the 1940s and 1950s, and strategies have evolved over time. From the early 1950s until 1978, Malaria was eliminated in parts of North America and Europe. A pandemic that was once common is now, for all purposes, non-existent in those same regions due to implementation of effective health care systems and strong economics. However, Malaria is still prevalent in resource poor countries, causing significant morbidity and mortality ("The Global Malaria Epidemic"). In 2010 an estimated 219 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and 660,000 people died. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a developing country in the South Pacific with approximately seven million people in the South Pacific. It
Malaria is a common infectious disease found mainly in the tropics but in rare circumstances can be found in temperate areas. Depending on the circumstances malaria can be either life threatening cause serious illness.
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)
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.