The Mosquito-Born Disease of Malaria

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.

Mosquitoes pass malaria to humans through their salivary glands. Once the parasites have entered the blood stream, they go to the liver. In the liver they mature and undergo reproduction, forming merozoites. These merozoites enter the blood stream and inject themselves into red blood cells. Once inside the blood cells, they reproduce rapidly and within forty-eight to seventy-two hours, the blood cell bursts, releasing hemoglobin into the blood stream. It is the destruction of these blood cells and the hemoglobin released into the blood stream that actually causes most of the symptoms.

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

Annually, 200 million malaria cases are contracted and of these, 90% occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately one million people die annually, making plasmodium falciparum the most deadly parasitic disease. Contraction of plasmodium falciparum begins when a female Anopheles mosquito injects sporozoites, an early form of plasmodium falciparum, into the host. This sporozite is then transported to the human liver where it undergoes asexual reproduction producing merozoites. The merozoites invade other liver cells and enter the host’s bloodstream, where they invade erythrocyte. After the infection of the erythrocyte, the merozoite is transformed into a trophozoite, which then begins asexual reproduction near the nucleus to form a schizont in the erythrocytic cell. The schizont then asexually reproduces to produce mononucleated merozoites. When the erythrocytic cell ruptures due to the 3,000-4,000 merozoites produced, symptoms of fever and chills are induced within the host. This life cycle is extremely damaging to children; persons under the age of 5 account for 86% of malaria fatalities. Malaria has other characteristic effects, such as yellowing of the skin/eyes (jaundice), sweating, vomiting, weakness, and nausea. Current mortality rates in Africa are 9.33% per 1000 children, which represent 28.2% of all fatalities for those under five. The story changes dramatically as the host

The ability to evolve so quickly is related to the high reproduction rate. This is a major obstacle because insecticides play a large role in controlling the mosquito population, which is the malaria vector. Environmental changes such as climate changes cause the spread of mosquitoes into new areas where as before was not viable. Changing the landscaping from areas such as farmland with animals to plants will change the primary blood meal of mosquitoes. Variation in mosquito behavior is an obstacle because it was once thought that mosquitoes only feed for blood meals in houses yet this is not true. Mosquitoes are as likely if not more to feed outside. It is hard to identify behavioral patterns of and animal especially one of such

Mosquitoes can transmit a bigger number of illnesses than other variants of arthropods and have an impact on a large number of human population all throughout the world. WHO has declared that mosquitoes are the “public enemy number one” (Geneva, 1996).

Malaria. Our 130 million year old enemy. Malaria has been around since the dawn of time and just like the evolution of humans, the disease evolved over time (Malaria.com, 2011). Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a specific parasite called Plasmodium, and it is transmitted to people through the bites of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Plasmodium is a unique parasite because of its structure-it is a single celled organism that multiples in our red blood cells (Canada.com, 2016). The Plasmodium parasite has 4 species which are known to cause the disease in humans, these being: P. Vivax, P. Falciparum, P. Ovale, and P. Malariae. Specifically, P. Vivax, and P. Falciparum are the 2 most common types of parasites to cause the

Malaria is a life threatening disease that has the capability of impacting the lives of about 3.2 billion people around the world. This large amount of people accounts for almost half of the world 's population. In the United States alone, there are about 1,500 cases of malaria every year. Although Malaria is preventable, and even curable, many countries do not have the money and resources to fight this disease. 1As of 2015, there are 97 countries and territories that are known to have ongoing cases of malaria transmission and there were 214

Malaria is a disease transmitted by parasites but mainly from female mosquitos. This disease infects the body with a parasite called Plasmodium. There are many signs and symptoms that occur and can be diagnosed by examining blood under a microscope. Malaria can be treated but not fully cured.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that is caused by parasites and directly causes sickness and flu-like symptoms such as high fevers and/or chills. As of 2015, about 95 countries are directly effected by the disease caused by female Anopheles mosquitos, and about 3.2 billion people are at risk of receiving the disease as well. According to the Malaria No More, malaria can kill if there are no drugs available to cure it. If there are no drugs available then the risk of anemia, hypoglycemia, and/or cerebral malaria becomes much greater. Malaria is also very contagious. Travelling to and from a malaria-risk region is very dangerous for it is transmitted very easily though mosquitos.

According to the health and environment, Malaria is a universal contagious disease and also a tremendous social complication all around the world, especially in South Asia, and Africa. Approximately, 3 billion of the community are in danger of infection in 109 regions. Every year, there is a prediction of 250 million compacts of miasm prominent to 1 million annihilations, particularly adolescents under 5 years old. The structure that causes the greatest unhealthy form of paludism is a imperceptible parasite that is known as the “Plasmodium falciparum”.

Malaria thrives in warm and human areas that have bounty stagnant water sources ideal for breeding and egg nesting. Once bitten by a mature anopheles mosquito the incubation time between infection and showing symptoms is usually between 6-7 days (Patricia Schlagenhauf-Lawlor, & Funk-Baumann, M., 2005, pg. 10)(1). The common symptoms of malaria like chills, headache and perfuse diaphoresis to name a few, exacerbate due to parasitic replication and destruction of the bodies RBC. Once the cell is destroyed the merozites from the RBC disperse throughout the

Malaria is caused by a parasite that is transferred by a bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. The most deadly form of malaria is known as Plasmodium falciparum because almost all deaths from malaria are caused by strain. In addition to this, falciparum

Malaria is considered the most important vector-borne infectious disease in the world, which is caused by a species of the Plasmodium parasite, and transmitted by female Anopheles spp mosquitoes.2,10,12

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)