Transmission
- Mosquitoes takes a blood meal from an infect person who has the parasites in their blood
- Then they feed on an uninfected person
- The parasites are present in the saliva of the mosquito
- Causes of illness
- red blood cells break open and release parasites into the bloodstream
- the person then has symptoms such as chills, fever and headache.
- then the person starts sweating and their body temperature falls
- cycle of symptoms repeats every 48 to 72 hours, following the life cycle of the parasites
- each cycle worsens the person's anaemia or lack of red blood cells
- less and less oxygen reaches the brain and other organs
- so the symptoms are:
- fever, anaemia, headaches, shivering, sweating, nausea
Distribution
- Fighting malaria
- best method of prevention is to get rid of the mosquitoes
- either use insecticides or get rid of breeding grounds
- some success with this method - malaria eliminated from some parts of the world
- Difficulties
- Mosquito - can become resistant to insecticides and chemicals used to contorl
- they breed very quickly
- breeds in the smallest bodies of water
- especially in rainy seasons of tropics
- difficult to drain water to prevent egg laying
- increasing areas with global climate change
- Plasmodium
- drugs are used to fight it but they can also ecome resistance to drugs
- people do not take the drugs for a long period of time so it comes back
- different strains (4 specials)
- different stages to life cycle
- complex organism so difficult to target drugs
- inside the RBC and liver cells - hard to get them as they are inside delicate cells
- No vaccine
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