MALARIA FACT SHEET

What Is Malaria?

Plasmodium falciparum, AKA ‘malaria’ is a disease caused by the eukaryotic organism of genus Plasmodium, with many species including the most common ‘vivax’ and ‘falciparum’.

Plasmodium falciparum is a parasite, which is in the protoctists kingdom.

Transmission

The transmission of Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) is very complex and requires numerous steps and processes.

Malaria is caused a vector: the female Anopheles, a type of mosquito. The female Anopheles carries the Plasmodium from an infected person to an uninfected person, hence transmitting the disease. The female Anopheles’ mouth parts are adapted to have a proboscis, which pierces the blood vessel to

draw blood. The malarial parasites live in the red blood cells of the human and feed on the haemoglobin. These are taken in by the mosquito.

Cycle Of Malaria

1) Female Anopheles mosquito sucks the infected person’s blood, which contains the parasite gametes into it’s stomach.

2) These gametes fuse and the zygote develops inside the mosquito’s stomach.

3) They move to the mosquito’s salivary glands.

4) When the mosquito bites the uninfected person, it’s alive is injected as an anticoagulant.

5) Saliva contains the infective state of the parasite.

6) In the human host, the infective stages of the parasite enter the liver, where they multiply before passing through into the blood.

7) In the blood, they enter the red blood cells where they feed on haemoglobin and gametes are produced

8) The cycle continues.

Cycle Summary

1) Mosquito carries gametes in stomach 2) Zygote formed 3) Move to saliva 4) Bites person 5) Infected person has infective stages 6) Migrate to the liver cells 7) Migrate to the red blood cells.

Ways Of Transmitting

• Use of careless and unhygienic medical equipment.

• Unscreened blood transfusions.

• Unsterilised needles. • Able to travel across the

placenta.

Little Extras To Know

• Parasites cause the illness whilst they are reproducing inside the red blood cells, which burst out releasing chemicals which cause fever.

• Symptoms usually appear 10-15 days after infection. • Several drugs are used as prophylactics, taken before

infection to avoid development of malaria.

• Many Plasmodium are resistant, hence it is hard to develop vaccines

• Some people may loose immunity because they had no further exposure, no antigens or no boosters.

• There are many different strains of malaria. • Difficult to make a vaccine because there is more than

one stage of the life cycle. • Parasite can be hidden in the cells.