QUESTION How long does malaria take to actually affect you? ANSWER When you are bitten by a mosquito that is infected with the parasites that cause malaria, some of the parasites enter your blood stream in the mosquito's saliva. After that, it will take at least one week, and usually between two and four weeks, before you start to feel the symptoms of the disease. This is because the … [Read more...]
Malaria Effect on Host
QUESTION What is the effect of malaria on host? ANSWER In the human host, malaria can often make a person very sick, though the exact symptoms and severity of the disease depends on the type of malaria (five different kinds of malaria infect humans). Many people will have a high fever, chills, nausea and body aches. In a symptom very typical of malaria, a patient will experience cyclical … [Read more...]
Structure and Size of Malaria
QUESTION What is the structure and size of malaria? ANSWER Malaria is caused by a single celled protist of the genus Plasmodium. It undergoes a complex life cycle, involving two separate asexual reproductive stages in the vertebrate host (including humans) and sexual reproduction as well as multiplication in the insect vector (all human malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes). As such, the … [Read more...]
Malaria Infectious?
QUESTION Is malaria infectious? ANSWER Yes, malaria is considered an infectious disease, though it is very rarely transmitted directly between people, and virtually all of the time must be transmitted via the bite of a mosquito (of the genus Anopheles). Because part of the life cycle of malaria occurs in red blood cells in the human host, if sufficient amounts of blood are shared … [Read more...]
Life Cycle of Malaria
QUESTION Why does the malaria parasite first enter the liver? ANSWER The malaria parasite enters the liver in order to transform from a sporozoite (which can infect liver cells) to a merozoite, which is capable of infecting red blood cells. Both stages also include a proliferation step, but in the blood, the merozoites are also able to differentiate into gametocytes, which are then taken … [Read more...]
Malaria Parasites Classification
QUESTION Where are malaria parasites classified? ANSWER The parasite that causes malaria comes from the genus Plasmodium, which is part of a Phylum of single-celled protist organisms called Apicomplexa. The Apicomplexans mostly posses an organ called an apicoplast, which is part of an apical structure designed to aid entry into a host cell. The Apicomplexa is split into two Classes, of … [Read more...]
Feeling Ill After Malaria Infection
QUESTION How soon after infection, will a person usually begin to feel ill? ANSWER There is a latent period, during which time the malaria parasites (which had entered the bloodstream via the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito) migrate to the liver and undergo replication. The sporozoites (the life stage that enters the blood from the mosquito) differentiate in many merozoites, which … [Read more...]
Pathophysiology of Malaria
QUESTION What is the pathophysiology of malaria? ANSWER Malaria causes disease through a number of pathways, which depend to a certain extent on the species. Malaria is caused by a single-celled parasite of the genus Plasmodium; there are five species which infect humans, beingPlasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. knowlesi. All these species are introduced into … [Read more...]
What Causes Malaria
QUESTION What are the causes of malaria? ANSWER Malaria is caused by infection with certain single-celled parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Specifically, there are five species which infect humans: P. falciparum (the most severe and dangerous form of malaria), P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. knowlesi. The symptoms of the disease occur when the parasite enters the blood stream … [Read more...]
What year was the cause of malaria discovered?
QUESTION When did they find out that a bug bite caused malaria, and what year was that? ANSWER In 1880, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran observed that malaria was caused by a parasite in the blood; it wasn't until 1897-1898 that Ronald Ross, a British Army medical doctor, discovered that the parasite could be transmitted between hosts (he used birds for his experiments) by mosquitoes. … [Read more...]