Posts Tagged ‘Malaria’
Malaria
What is malaria?
Malaria is a potentially fatal disease. Especially in countries with tropical climates and developing countries. Malaria plays an important role in the health of the population. Is an infection of red blood cells by a parasite that destroys them.
What causes malaria?
Malaria is caused by infection with the microscopic parasite plasmodium. There are over 150 species of Plasmodium that infect different vertebrates, but only four (P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale and P. malariae) infect humans. The two most common species are P. causing acute falciparum malaria and may lead to death and P. vivax which causes infections and recurrent debilitating but rarely fatal.
The plasmodium is transmitted to humans through bites from Anopheles mosquitoes infected with the parasite.
In humans, the parasites migrate to the liver where they mature and then enter the bloodstream and infect red blood cells.
The parasites multiply within red corpuscles, after 48 to 72 hours, break and infect more red blood cells.
If a mosquito carrying the parasite is not piqa an infected person can infect others. Read the rest of this entry »