QUESTION: I am getting malaria every six months, after taken chloroquine medicine tablets. Is this normal,when my resistance is low, or is it coming aging, is there any medicine to clear the malaria? ANSWER: While taking chloroquine can be used to treat malaria, it will not prevent re-infection, unfortunately. One thing to check though is whether you are living in an area where the local … [Read more...]
Diagnostic test for malaria?
QUESTION: What are the possible diagnoses tests? ANSWER: A blood test is usually required to diagnose malaria, although the blood can be used in a number of different ways. The most common, traditional form of diagnosis is a blood smear, observed under a microscope by a qualified technician. These can be "thick" or "thin"; the "thick" smear examines a whole drop of blood for the presence … [Read more...]
Malaria Blood Work
QUESTION: What means smear for malaria - value 1? ANSWER: In most cases, I would suggest this means a positive result, though the exact meaning of that depends to some extent to the type of blood test it was. You mention a smear; to me, that implies that the test used traditional microscopy to look for red blood cells infected with malaria parasites. In this case, a result of 1 would … [Read more...]
Simple Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) for Malaria Work Well
When a person living in a malarial area gets a fever, health workers need to know the cause to make absolutely sure they give the right treatment. For many years in sub-Saharan Africa primary health workers have often assumed a fever is caused by malaria, and given antimalarial drugs. This approach means sometimes people receive the wrong treatment for their illness. It also wastes resources and, … [Read more...]
Treating Malaria by Health Extension Workers: A Case Study from Ethiopia
For many years the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have been promoting an Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) training package to ensure that nurses and doctors are capable of treating sick children at health facilities. Over the years, with the realization that many children did not have access to health facilities and therefore … [Read more...]
Treatment for malaria in Africa
QUESTION: What is the treatment for malaria in Africa? ANSWER: The appropriate form of treatment for malaria, regardless of where you are, depends on the type of malaria you have. This can be determined through diagnosis; each of the main malaria parasites that ordinarily infect humans (P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae and P. ovale) looks slightly different under the microscope, … [Read more...]
Malaria Self-Diagnosis
QUESTION: I live in Nigeria and was wondering if there are ways to find out if I malaria without going to the doctor or a hospital? ANSWER: The current "gold-standard" for malaria diagnosis, at least of active infections, is through microscropy, where a trained technician looks at a droplet of your blood on a slide, and sees if any of your red blood cells are infected with the malaria … [Read more...]