Malaria

=Malaria: Causes, Effects and Prevention =

Causes of infection
Malaria affects people in the southern half of the world, mainly in poorer countries. Around 500 million people are infected with malaria every year. The map below shows countries with people infected with malaria. As you can see, richer countries with drugs readily available have managed to eradicate malaria and colder countries which are too cold for malaria transmitting mosquitoes to live don't have malaria.



The Malaria parasite
Malaria is a one celled parasite. There are 4 species of the parasite the most dangerous of which is Plasmodium falciparum, a species most likely to be transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. The other 3 which can give humans malaria are Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium vivax.

There are 2 organisms infected in a Plasmodium life cycle, human and mosquito. The parasite starts out in an infected female anopheles mosquito and goes into the human body via a mosquito bite in the form of sporozoites. These Sporozoites enter the bloodstream and travel towards a liver cell. Once they enter a liver cell, they then rapidly divide asexually into thousands of merozoites. These merozoites then enter the bloodstream and infect blood cells. Inside the blood cells, the merozoites expand like a cell and then they divide asexually which makes a schizont, which contains lots of nuclei. This schizont divides to make more merozoites. These merozoites burst the blood cell and infect other cells. This causes fevers and chills. Sometimes, merozoites in blood cells become gametocytes which are able to reproduce sexually. Gametocytes are extracted by mosquitoes from an infected human hosts. When the male gametocyte and female join together, a fertilized zygote is made. This inbeds itself in the gut wall and is then called Ookinete. Then this Ookinete makes sporozoites which travel to the salivary gland. The mosquito bites, and the cycle begins again. [|Plasmodium Life Cycle]        media type="youtube" key="iwAEsOpvHn0" height="344" width="425"

Symptoms
Depending on the type of mosquito you are bitten by and the form of malaria, no symptoms can occur for 9-40 days after the bite. Malaria symptoms depend on your immunity (people with heightened immunity might have little to no symptoms), your health and whether you have had your spleen taken out. In the early stages of infection, symptoms similar to any other disease appear: Fevers, Chills, Headache, Sweats, Fatigue, Nausea and Vomiting. The symptoms of malaria, intensify or grow less depending on the cycle of toxins put in the body when merozoites enter out of blood cells.Other symptoms can include: Dry Cough, Muscle Pain or Back Pain and an enlarged spleen. Infection with the P. falciparum parasite (the most deadly form of malaria) can cause death.

Effects
Malaria is life threatening and can cause you damage to your brain and body which could disable you for life and death.

Prevention
Any mosquito carried disease can be supressed by putting mosquito nets over your beds and in the windows if you are in an infected area. Use mosquito repellant. If you feel that you are at big risk or are travelling to an area with lots of cases of malaria in, it may be good to get a vaccine prescription for malaria.

Below are links to pages of my wiki: Page 1: Homepage Page 2: The Mosquito Page 4: Dengue Fever: Causes, Effects and Prevention Page 5: West Nile Fever: Causes, Effects and Prevention Page 6: Other Diseases caused by the Mosquito bite Page 7: Works Cited