Cause :
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by parasitic protozoans (a type of unicellular microorganism) of the genus Plasmodium. Commonly, the disease is transmitted via a bite from an infected female Anopheles mosquito, which introduces the organisms from its saliva into a person's circulatory system.More than half a million children die each year from malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum.
Symptoms :
- Fever
- Headache
- Shivering, joint pain, vomiting, hemolytic anemia, jaundice, hemoglobin in the urine, retinal damage, and convulsions
- Sometimes coma or death
Areas
Tropical and subtropical regions in a broad band around the equator, including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Tests
Malaria is usually confirmed by the microscopic examination of blood films or by antigen-based rapid diagnostic tests (RDT).
Medication :
- The most effective treatment for P. falciparum infection is the use of artemisinins in combination with other antimalarials (known as artemisinin-combination therapy, or ACT), which decreases resistance to any single drug component.
- Drugs with artemisinin have led the fight against this single-celled parasite's depredations and contributed to a decline in the world's burden of malaria.
- However, strains of P. falciparum that are resistant to artemisinin have been detected in Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.
- An international team of scientists have identified a parasite gene K-19 whose mutations are associated with artemisinin resistance. Such mutations could be “a useful molecular marker for tracking the emergence and spread.
