Malaria and Global Responsibility Essay

The WHO Global Malaria Programme is responsible for evidence-based policy and strategy formulation, technical assistance, capacity building, malaria surveillance, monitoring and evaluation, and coordination of global efforts to fight malaria. WHO is also a co-founder and hosts the Roll Back Malaria partnership, which is the global framework to implement coordinated action against malaria (The World Health Organization Staff, 2010). The CDC participates actively in global malaria efforts through work with the WHO, Roll Back Malaria Partners, UNICEF, and more in the fight to keep the epidemic at bay (Global Health - Division of Parasitic Diseases , 2010).

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 (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

Background - Malaria is a water borne disease. It is spread by a parasite-carrying mosquito. It kills many people and reduces a country 's capacity to develop. There are different strategies to combat malaria. Around half the population is at risk of malaria and this disease is active in 106 counties across Africa, Asian and the Americas (see source 3). the global annual mortality from malaria is between 1.5 - 3 million deaths, or between 4000 and 8000 each day. Developing countries are most vulnerable to Malaria and as shown on source 2 Malaria has been spread across many various other countries including in Europe, but these countries have eradicated Malaria.

Malaria, a potentially fatal disease, was discovered to be caused by only one type of mosquito by Ronald Ross and Giovanni Battista Grassi. Malaria affects over 300 million people each year. Without Ross and Grassi, the groundwork to find the cure for malaria would not have been set. Both Ross and Grassi could not have discovered what they did without each other. Although Ross won the Nobel Prize, it is clear that both Ross and Grassi should've gotten it.

Famine has been declared in South Sudan, and is an imminent risk in Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria. Save the Children have responded to the crisis by providing food aid and cash transfers, Emergency Health Units to treat children suffering from severe malnutrition, as well as clean drinking water and technical assistance to governments to support their responses. Save the Children’s response improves health and human development by ensuring children have access to sufficient food and clean drinking water to meet their needs. This reduces the incidence of water-borne diseases and related morbidity rates. Save the Children work to treat the high malnutrition rates in conflict and drought affected countries where resources are limited. Malaria treatment and prevention measures are also available in countries such as Nigeria, ensuring health access to those living in severe poverty. These control measures are vital for preventing an increase in malaria cases across

As a social worker, one could aim to connect health care facilities in Zambia, where 1 in 5 children are dying from malaria, to Doctors without Borders, a resource sharing the privileges of modern medicine with participating countries (Harrison, et al., 2005). The doctors participating could provide the local doctors with new information on healthcare and possible prevention methods for contracting malaria including updated vaccinations and treatment. This would connect those without access to such resources to good healthcare and promote social justice by potentially decreasing the child mortality rate of children with

Moreover, when examining the intersection between the medical impacts of malaria on the human and the social consequences, a vicious cycle is revealed in which the body, the community, and the economy are all similarly impacted by the presence of malaria in a

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

Global health refers to all aspects of a system concerning health. It takes into account history and political economy to help us understand "the skewed distributions of wealth and illness around the globe" (Farmer). Medical anthropologists studying in this field analyze the contributions by such factors and work to solve health problems with "an interdisciplinary approach" (Farmer). Describing the forces that cause millions each year to fall ill to Malaria, a preventable and treatable disease, requires what Farmer calls a biosocial approach – analyzing how changing social structures that transcend national and other administrative boundaries affect health (Farmer).

"The failure to engage in the fight to anticipate, prevent, and ameliorate global health problems would diminish America's stature in the realm of health and jeopardize our own 
health, economy, and national security, " stated by The Institute of Medicine. Global health refers to health phenomenon that transcends across national borders. For instance, global health would address predicaments such as: infectious and insect-borne diseases that can spread from one country to another. Thus, global health should be addressed by collaborative actions and solutions. On the other hand, countries tend to focus on other essential issues that are occurring in the present day and therefore, overlook the global health issue. Some issues that countries

One of the infectious diseases that were considered eliminated was the measles virus. It is one of the most contagious diseases in the world that has infected numerous people over time. The first published accounts of measles were written by a Persian doctor in the 9th century. In 1757, Dr. Francis Home of Scotland found that measles was caused by infectious agents in blood. By 1912, the disease had become nationally known in the U.S. An

Malaria goes back centuries. There are writings depicting the symptoms of malaria in the Chinese medicinal book, the Nei Ching, which was written in 2700 BC. Many civilizations after this time period have writing on the common symptoms of malaria. “In the Susruta, a Sanskrit medical treatise, the symptoms of malarial fever were described and attributed to the bites of certain insects” (About Malaria” 2015).In 1880, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a surgeon in the French army, was credited with the discovery of the malaria parasite. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1907 for his discovery. Two Italian investigators, by the names of Giovanni Batista Grassi and Raimondo Filetti, were the ones who gave the parasites a name. They called them the Plasmodium vivax and P. malariae. Charles Laveran thought that there was only one type of the virus, the Oscillaria Malariae. The man who finally realized that mosquitoes transfer the virus was Ronald Ross, an officer in the Indian medical service.

Malaria or a disease resembling malaria has been noted for more than 4,000 years. Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army surgeon, stationed in Constantine, Algeria, was the first to notice parasites in the blood of a patient suffering from malaria. Malaria was then a serious problem, and Laveran meticulously studied the disease 's clinical aspects and its anatomic pathology. Ronald Ross, a British officer in the Indian Medical Service, was the first to demonstrate that malaria parasites could be transmitted from infected patients to mosquitoes and vice versa.

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