QUESTION: What is malaria? ANSWER: Malaria is a disease caused by a parasitic single-celled animal known as Plasmodium. There are different species of Plasmodium, which cause different kinds of malaria. The main types which infect humans are P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale and P. malariae. The parasite is transmitted by certain species of mosquito; the parasite lives in the human blood … [Read more...]
Can malaria come back?
QUESTION: If you had malaria once, can it return for a second time without being in a malaria area? ANSWER: Yes. There are several ways in which malaria can come back without being re-infected again. The blood forms of the parasites can sometimes persist at low numbers, so that the patient no longer has any symptoms; if these blood forms begin to reproduce again, the patient will once … [Read more...]
What is malaria? What Causes Malaria?
QUESTIONS: What is malaria? What causes malaria? ANSWER: I have copied below the text from an earlier question, also asking about the causes of malaria and explaining what it is: Malaria is a disease caused by a parasitic single-celled animal known as Plasmodium. There are different species of Plasmodium, which cause different kinds of malaria. The main types which infect humans … [Read more...]
What are the three stages of a malaria attack?
QUESTION: What are the three stages of a typical malaria attack? ANSWER: I'm not entirely clear as to what you're asking with this question; do you mean the stages of infection within the human host, or the successive changes in the symptoms during the fever cycles that characterise a malarial episode? If you mean the latter, then the three typical stages of symptoms during a malaria … [Read more...]