The Causes Of Malaria Essay, Research Paper

THE CAUSES OF MALARIA

Malaria is an infection by parasites which is spread by mosquito bites. The parasites are one cell animals which spend their live in the red blood cells of humans, and part in female anophleles mosquitos. The parasites are called protozoals of the species of plasmodia. It is most wide spead in the malaria belt which includes Mexico, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Honduras, Ecuador, Africa, India, Southeast Asia and the Philippines.

Malaria can also be infected by blood transfusions, infected donors and among drug users who share neddles with infected people.

How Malaria is spread

1. An anopheles that is

infected with malaria ca-

using parasites known

as plasmodia transmits

the parsites in its saliva

when it bites a human. 2.

once in the human body,

the immature plasmodia

circulate through the blo-

od stream and 3. invade

the red blood cells. Here

the plasmodia mature

and multiply. 4. As the

cells break apart, 5. so-

me of the parasites inv-

ade still other red blood

cells, and 6. some dev-

elop into mosquito-infe-

ecting forms. 7. After a

healthy mosquito bites

an infected human, the

cycle begins all over

again.

THE SYMPTOMS OF MALARIA

The symptoms of malaria begin one or two weeks after being infected. The symptom start with an intense attack of a shaking chill. The patient gets a fever and their temperature rises to abou 40*C. The ferver is accompanied with servere headaches. After many hours the patient starts sweating a lot. The headache then disappears and the temperature goes back to normal.

Durring the early stages of infection the attack may occur every day, but within a few days you will notice a pattern because there are

three types of malaria, falciparum, tertian and the quartan malaria. If the attacks occure at irregular intervals it is the falciparum malaria ( the most dangerous). If the attacks occur every 48 hours (2 days) the disease is called tertian malaria. If the attack occur every 72 hours (3 days) the disease is called quartan malaria. The most common type is the tertian malaria the fever often occures every day. Although the tertian malaria is quite mild but it causes chronic illness, they often have relapses. HOW MALARIA IS TREATED

To treat malaria the aim is to distroy the parasites while they are in the patient’s red blood cell. This is done by using a drug called chloroquine, this drug interferes with the developement of the parasite, people infected with the vivax parasite may have prolonged liver infections, and they should also take the drug primaquine.

In some parts of the world one of the malaria disease have become resistant to treatment with chloroquine. The patients of that area are treated with a mixture of three drugs, pyrimethamine, quinine and a sulfa drug.

THE PREVENTION OF MALARIA

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a massive malaria control program, as the disease is difficult to control. Some mosquitos have become resistant to insecticides and drugs.

Some methods of killing the mosquitos is by distroying the breading places. This can be done by spraying the swamp with chemicals that distroy the larvae, or the swamp could be drained

Before traveling overseas travelers can take vacsonations as a proventative, it lasts for six week. When staying in a malaria infected country always use repelant and a mosquito net when sleeping, it will lessen the chances of being bitten.