Malaria

By: Cheyenne D. 

     Malaria is a parasitic disease carried by the Anopheles mosquito . It affects much of Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Symptoms of Malaria include:

• Chills
• Fever
• Sweating
• Headache
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Muscle Pains
• Anemia
• Jaundice
• Convulsions
• In severe cases: Coma and Death

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          There are approximately 350-500 million cases of malaria around the world every year, the majority of which are young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, very few children in this part of Africa live to reach the age of five.

     There are five different species of malaria that affect humans. They are:

• Plasmodium vivax
• Plasmodium ovale
• Plasmodium malariae
• Plasmodium knowlesi
• Plasmodium falciparum

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     Severe malaria is caused by Plasmodium falciparum and usually shows symptoms 6-14 days after infection. This is the only species of malaria that can affect the brain, and causes coma and death in over 20% of cases in all other lands than Africa, in which the death rate is multiplied over three times the average.Although Plasmodium falciparum is the most severe of the strains of malaria, it is not chronic. Chronic malaria disappears for a period of time, then reappears, but is always present in the blood. Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale are the two strains of malaria that have chronic reappearing symptoms.

     The word malaria comes from the Italian mal'aria, meaning bad air. The disease was named as such due to the fact that during the great Italian malaria epidemic, they thought foul fumes from the swamp caused the disease.  As it was later discovered, the mosquitoes living and breeding in the swamp were the carriers of the parasites. 

          Malaria is a disease that hides within the blood. The first time it enters the blood stream, it latches on to a red blood cell. The parasite burrows into the blood cell and begins feeding. As it feeds, the malaria parasite reproduces, filling the blood cell with parasites. Once the cell has reached full capacity, it bursts, sending thousands of malaria parasites into the bloodstream. These parasites then burrow into yet more red blood cells, producing more malaria parasites. Due to the fact that malaria hides in the blood cells, the liver doesn't filter it as it would filter other diseases. Soon, the bloodstream is full of malaria-infected blood cells. In Plasmodium falciparum, the infected blood cells cling like Velcro to the brain, causing serious cerebral problems, such as coma and death.

          Pregnant women and children ages 1through  7 are the most susceptible to the disease. In fact, in the most severe cases, a young African child could wake up and go play outside, seemingly perfectly healthy, and be struck with severe cerebral malaria by nightfall.

     There are many countries focusing on curing malaria. Here in the United States, we are donating billions of dollars toward vaccination trials and mosquito nets. In fact, there is a biochemistry lab in Maryland that is focused solely on finding a cure for malaria that is cheap enough to share with the world.

Bibliography

     1. Information from  http://www.google.com/health

     2. Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria