Public Health Impact on the Control of Malaria in Sub - Saharan Africa

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

in humans are caused by 5 parasite species, P. falciparum and P. vivax are 2 of the species

While the most common way malaria is transmitted is from mosquitoes to humans, there are other ways of catching the disease. One way is from mother to her unborn child. When a disease is contracted this way it is said to have been transmitted congenitally. Another way is during blood transfusions. This is why it is important to be tested for diseases such as malaria before you give blood.

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 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.

Engulfing the Congo and the Sub-Saharan regions of the African peninsula, a new threat has emerged; lying below the mucky surface of a deforested plain, a killer has taken root. At risk is half of the world’s population who reside in the 106 countries and territories that are prone to plasmodium falciparum transmission. Who is this killer? Anopheles gambiae complex, which has devastated the African region acting as a vector for the parasite plasmodium falciparum, more commonly referred to as malaria. Why has a parasite that is responsible for approximately half of all recorded deaths relatively unheard of in Western civilization? The answer lies with the deforestation and non-sustainable practices that plague the African union.

Also, human population movement from higher transmission areas jeopardizes reintroduction and resurgence in malaria-free regions, and in addition has undermined elimination works in the past. For that reason, it is important to understand the patterns of parasite dispersal in order to target control by pinpointing regions where the imported infections originate from and where they play a part in transmission.

In areas where malaria thrives, human populations have been known to suffer in its clutches. Malaria is a tropical disease that causes thousands of deaths worldwide. However, a majority of malaria cases and deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. The prevalence of malaria in African countries places a heavy burden on its people and affects all aspects of society. Considered both a consequence and a fundamental cause of poverty, malaria has a host of negative effects that hinder the growth and well-being of the African population.

Malaria has become a common name throughout the world. While significant efforts have been made since antimalarial treatments in the 1940’s, the disease still continues as an endemic around the globe. Malaria is a global public health issue, with epidemiological methods of tracking patterns, causes, and effects of health outcomes to continuously work toward protecting and saving lives. While current interventions have impacted the rates of malaria, advances have been made to include spatial targeting for predicting risk in certain locations, methods of using microbes to eliminate mosquito prevalence, and opportunities for vaccines to reduce incidence rates can be promising practices to reduce the

Malaria is an infectious disease carried by mosquitos which is endemic to many tropical and subtropical regions, predominantly Northern Africa. Since 1980, data has been systematically collected in an attempt to expose true Global mortality rates; revealing both positive and negative fluctuations. However since

Malaria is becoming more prevalent in Nairobi and Indian villages in the Amazon because the of the human changes to ecosystems. In Kenya, malaria is spreading from the countryside to its major cities from citizens making the move from rural to urban areas. This is occurring because rural areas are becoming more polluted and less profitable for its inhabitants. These people moving from rural areas bring with them malaria carrying mosquitos to the shanty towns that surround the city. These shanty towns contain many gardens that provide the perfect breeding ground for the infected mosquitos. The introduction of these mosquitos into cities like Nairobi has drastically increased malaria prevalence in Africa. In South America, the spread of malaria has been linked to the rapid deforestation that is occurring in the Amazon. Scientist have studied water samples throughout the malaria hot zones and have found mosquito larvae only in waters that are located in deforested area. The shift in the ecosystem from rainforest to clear cut cow pasture has allowed for better breeding condition for mosquitos. These conditions in deforested areas have caused a massive up rise in the number of malaria cases in the region.

The Research Center for Human Development in Dakar constructed a program in order to estimate the nationwide burden of malaria in all regions. They led the Senegalese survey effort to collect rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and Blood smears of a representative random sample of 320 clusters and 9600 households throughout Senegal (Giardina et al., 2012). Geographically, those from the Southeastern region possess the greatest risk of contracting the malarial parasites (Figure 1). This is significant because this region is extremely rural with the least accessibility to hospitals and clinics. This region also has the highest amount of rainfall which facilitates reproduction in the mosquito population (Littrell et al., 2013). The northern region of the country has the lowest rates. This is given its proximity to the dry Sahara Desert whose climate is much less conducive to breeding mosquitos.

As stated by Shu et al. (2004), malaria is a “parasitic infection” transmitted by female anopheles mosquito. Decades ago, this infection was once endemic in developed countries such as United States; however, it is now seen to be more localised in tropical region such as Africa (Shu et al. 2004).

The incubation period varies for the different malaria parasite species. In most cases, the incubation period varies from 7-30 days.5 Shorter periods are seen in Plasmodium falciparum species and the longer ones are seen with Plasmodium malariae.5

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)