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Project On MALARIA

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by Plasmodium parasites that infect red blood cells. It is most common in tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and South America, putting over 3 billion people at risk. Malaria kills over 2.7 million people each year, mostly young children in Africa. It is transmitted between humans via the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Common symptoms include chills, fever, and sweating every two to three days.

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179 views

Project On MALARIA

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by Plasmodium parasites that infect red blood cells. It is most common in tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and South America, putting over 3 billion people at risk. Malaria kills over 2.7 million people each year, mostly young children in Africa. It is transmitted between humans via the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Common symptoms include chills, fever, and sweating every two to three days.

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bonat07
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MALARIA

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease affecting


humans and other animals caused by various species of
the parasitic protozoan microorganism called
Plasmodium. It is most common in tropical climates.
Malaria is an endemic disease that found in hundreds
of different countries around the world and over 3
billion people are at risk from the disease. It is a
disease that man has battled with for a long time.
DESCRIPTION

Malaria is a growing problem in the many developing


countries and infects between 300 and 500 million people
every year in Africa, India, southeast Asia, the Middle
East, Oceania, and Central and South America. A 2016
report stated that malaria kills 2.7 million people each
year, more than 75 percent of them African children under
the age of five. It is predicted that within five years,
malaria will kill about as many people as does AIDS. As
many as half a billion people worldwide are left with
chronic anemia due to malaria infection. In some parts of
Africa, people battle up to 40 or more separate episodes
of malaria in their lifetimes. The spread of malaria is
becoming even more serious as the parasites that cause
malaria develop resistance to the drugs used to treat the
condition.
Causes

Human malaria is caused by four different species of


a parasite belonging to genus Plasmodium:

Plasmodium falciparum (the most deadly)

Plasmodium vivax

Plasmodium malariae

Plasmodium ovale

An infected female mosquito Anopheles acts as


vector bitten to humanand transfer the malaria
parasite.

Symptoms

The primary symptom of all types of malaria is the


"malaria ague" (chills and fever). In most cases, the
fever has three stages, beginning with uncontrollable
shivering for an hour or two, followed by a rapid
spike in temperature (as high as 106°F), which lasts

three to six hours. Then, just as suddenly, the patient


begins to sweat profusely, which will quickly bring
down the fever. Other symptoms may include
fatigue, severe headache, or nausea and vomiting. As
the sweating subsides, the patient typically feels
exhausted and falls asleep. In many cases, this cycle
of chills, fever, and sweating occurs every other day,
or every third day, and may last for between a week
and a month.

Malarial Life Cycle

Malaria parasite exists in the form of a motile sporozoite.


The vector of malaria i.e. the female Anopheles mosquito
transmits the malarial sporozoites into the hosts. When an
infected mosquito bites a human, the sporozoites are
injected into the blood through the mosquito’s saliva. The
sporozoites travel into our body and accumulate in the
liver. These parasites initially multiply within the liver, by
damaging the liver and rupturing the blood cells in the
body. Themain weapon of malaria is its destruction of the
red blood cells. The parasites reproduce asexually in the
RBCs, bursting the cells and releasing more parasites to
infect more cells. The rupture of red blood cells by the
malaria parasite releases a toxin called hemozoin which
causes the patient’s chills. When the female Anopheles
mosquito bites an infected human, the parasites enter the
mosquito’s body along the human blood it is drinking. It
is inside the mosquito’s body that the actual development
and maturing of the parasite happens. The parasites
produced in the human body reach the intestine of the
mosquito where the male and females cells fertilize each
other to lead to the formation of a sporozoite.
On maturing, the sporozoite breaks out the mosquito’s
intestine and migrate to the salivary glands. Once they
reach salivary glands, they wait till the mosquito bites
another human and the process of infection and disease
begins all over again. It is prudent however to observe
that the complete development of the malaria parasite
takes place in two different hosts; humans and
mosquitoes.
Diagnosis
Malaria is diagnosed by examining blood under a
microscope. The parasite can be seen in the blood
smears on a slide. These blood smears may need to
be repeated over a 72-hour period in order to make a
diagnosis. Antibody tests are not usually helpful
because many people developed antibodies from
past infections, and the tests may not be readily
available. A new laser test to detect the presence of
malaria parasites in the blood was developed in
2002, but is still under clinical study.

Prevention of malaria
Malaria is one of the major causes of preventable death in
the world today. It affects more than 500 million people
worldwide and causes 1 to 2 million deaths every year. It
is a tropical infectious disease. The work to develop a
malaria vaccine is an important tool for the future
generations and is ongoing. There is two-way to deal with
malaria, prevent a mosquito bite i.e preventative steps or
attack the parasites once they have infiltrated our
body. The first method advocates the use of mosquito nets
and mosquito repellent such as permethrin to prevent
mosquitoes from biting you. The second form of
treatment uses a chemical called Quinine present in the
bark of a cinchona tree. A form of drug chloroquine has
proven very effective against malaria though not a
vaccine

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