A Day in the Life of Malaria

Malaria is an illness associated with high fevers, headache and vomiting, which normally caused by an infectious bite from a female mosquito (anopheles). It is a bit funny that a female mosquito is responsible for doing this harm to Nigerians which has a culture of seeing men as the greater threat rather than women. The fact that a female animal is responsible for many mosquito related deaths in Nigeria is a bit abnormal. Well, that's a topic for another day.

Once the parasites are inside your body, they travel to the liver, where they mature. After several days, the mature parasites enter the bloodstream and begin to infect red blood cells. Within 48 to 72 hours, the parasites inside the red blood cells multiply, causing the infected cells to burst open

An infected mother can also pass the disease to her baby at birth. This is known as congenital malaria. Malaria is transmitted by blood, so it can also be transmitted through:
An organ transplant, transfusion or use of shared needles and syringes
Common symptoms of Malaria
High fever, Profuse sweating, Headache, Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhea, Anemia
Muscle pain, Convulsions, Bloody stools

How Is Malaria Diagnosed?
If you have symptoms of malaria, your doctor may order additional blood tests to confirm your diagnosis. These tests will show: whether or not you have malaria, what type of malaria you have if your infection is caused by a parasite that’s resistant to certain types of drugs if the disease has caused anaemia, and if the disease has affected your vital organs.

How to treat a patient with malaria depends on:
1. The type (species) of the infecting parasite (for example, Plasmodium falciparum)
2. The area where the infection was acquired and its drug-resistance status
3. The clinical status of the patient
4. Any accompanying illness or condition
5. Drug allergies or other medications are taken by the patient
6. Drugs that kill the parasite that causes malaria can be used to treat and prevent the disease. These drugs are called antimalarial.

However, if you contract malaria while taking one type of antimalarial drug, the same drug cannot be used to treat the infection as the parasite may be resistant to it.

Different drugs target different features of the parasite’s biology and life cycle. For example, chloroquine targets the blood stages of the life cycle whilst primaquine removes the dormant? liver stages.

Because of this, drugs are often used in combination with each other to make sure the malaria parasite is removed from all areas of the body. For example, primaquine can be used along with chloroquine to treat Plasmodium vivax.

How is Malaria prevented?
1. Take Ant-malaria drug periodically
2. Use mosquito net
3. Stay in a clean environment
4. Use insecticide
5. Use insect repellant creams

Facts about Malaria
1. Malaria was first identified in 1880 as a disease caused by parasitic infection
2. The name of the disease comes from the Italian word malaria, meaning "bad air.
3. the most common time for these mosquitoes to be active is between dusk and dawn Worldwide.
4. There were an estimated 198 million cases of malaria in 2013 and 584,000 deaths Malaria occurs mostly in poor, tropical areas of the world
5. An estimated 3.4 billion people in 106 countries and territories are at risk of malaria - nearly half of the world's population
6. Annual funding for malaria control in 2013 was three times the amount spent in 2005, yet it represented only 53% of global funding needs
7. Malaria incidence rates are estimated to have fallen by 30% globally between 2000 and 2013 while estimated mortality rates fell by 47%
8. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set out to reduce all malaria cases and deaths by 90% by 2030.