QUESTION my husband has been taking coartem for 3 days now. He was fine yesterday and then last night the symptoms re-appeared like it was day one. Can I carry on with coartem and start another course? Or shall I switch to something else ? If so, what? We live in zambia by the way. Thank you for your help. ANSWER If your husband still has strong symptoms after taking all doses of the … [Read more...]
Treatment and Management of Malaria Parasite
QUESTION What are the treatments and management of malaria? ANSWER Treatment is actually part of the strategy for managing malaria, so I will come back to that later. The other main ways in which malaria is controlled is through prevention, diagnosis (followed by treatment if necessary) and education. 1) Prevention: There are a number of ways to prevent malaria. These can be placed … [Read more...]
Malaria Beliefs
QUESTION How do beliefs and attitude affect the spread, treatment and prevention of malaria? ANSWER Accurate information and knowledge about how malaria is transmitted, diagnosed and treated is crucial to controlling the disease, for the general public living in malarial areas, travelers to these areas and health professionals. For example, many travelers are unaware that their … [Read more...]
What happens after you get malaria?
QUESTION What are the after effects of malaria? ANSWER In almost all cases, if malaria is diagnosed accurately and treated promptly, patients make a full recovery with no after effects. In some cases of severe malaria, the disease can develop into cerebral malaria, which can result in impaired mental function, loss of consciousness and coma (and, if untreated, even death). Again, if … [Read more...]
How to Control Malaria
QUESTION Suggestions to control malaria? ANSWER This answer is copied from an earlier question asking about strategies for controlling malaria in Africa. The methods below are being used by many health ministries, international agencies and non-governmental organisations to combat malaria all over the world (and not just in Africa). Currently, malaria control is based on a combination … [Read more...]
How to Prevent Malaria
QUESTION How to prevent malaria? ANSWER Despite its wide geographic range and potentially severe consequences, there are actually several effective strategies for controlling malaria, many of which have been successful of reducing the burden of the disease, and especially the number of deaths, in various regions. The first step towards control is prevention. This has largely been … [Read more...]
History of Fighting Malaria
QUESTION What are some examples of attempts of fighting this disease that happened in the past? ANSWER The battle against malaria has been going on, in one form or another, for literally thousands of years. The ancient Chinese mention the symptoms of the disease in a medical scroll as early as 2700 BCE - even more remarkably, a herb called Artemesia has been used in traditional Chinese … [Read more...]
Malaria Month
QUESTION What is the national month for malaria? ANSWER I'm not exactly sure I understand your question. If you are asking if there is a specific month when malaria is the worst, that depends on where you are. Malaria transmission is highly seasonal, because the mosquitoes that transmit the disease require pools of standing water in order to reproduce. Therefore in many places, … [Read more...]
Symptoms of Malaria
QUESTION What are the symptoms of malaria? ANSWER The symptoms of malaria include fever and flu-like illness, including shaking chills, headache, muscle aches, and tiredness. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may also occur. Malaria may cause anemia and jaundice (yellow coloring of the skin and eyes) because of the loss of red blood cells. Infection with one type of malaria, Plasmodium … [Read more...]
Malaria Schizonts
QUESTION: What is the difference between schizont of Plasmodium vivax and P. falciparum? ANSWER: P. falciparum schizonts tend to fill up to about two-thirds of the host red blood cell, and contain 8-24 merozoites (see image below for development of schizont). However, schizonts of P. falciparum are rarely seen in peripheral blood; instead, multiple, smaller rings are the usual diagnostic … [Read more...]