Information About Malaria
Malaria is an infection of the blood that is carried from person to person by mosquitoes. The disease has been recognized for thousands of years and once was found almost everywhere except in the most northern areas of the world. Malaria has been wiped out in North America, Western Europe, and Russia. It remains a serious problem in much of the tropical and subtropical world, however.
Medical treatment should be sought immediately. The effectiveness of ant malarial drugs differs with different species of the parasite and with different stages of the parasite’s life cycle. Your physician will determine the treatment plan most appropriate for your individual condition.Drugs includes chloroquine, mefloquine, primaquine, quinine, pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine (Fansidar), and doxycycline. Some plasmodium has developed resistance to certain medications, and therefore, alternative medications will be prescribed for you.
Malaria occurs where the Anopheles mosquito lives - ie particularly in hot, humid climates. Plasmodium falciparum is by far the most important malaria parasite in Africa.
There are also areas in Latin America, Asia, and Oceania, where malignant malaria still occurs. Plasmodium vivax is the most common in Asia and Latin America, including Central America.
If you have been in an area where malaria occurs, were exposed to mosquitoes, and develop flu-like symptoms, but tests do not show the malaria parasite in your blood, the tests should be repeated 3 or 4 times to confirm that you do not have a malaria infection. During medication treatment, tests are repeated to follow the course of the infection and to check whether the number of parasites is decreasing.
The prevention and treatment of malaria have changed considerably over the last decade, primarily as a result of the development and spread of drug-resistant parasites and a global resurgence of disease.
The first stage of plasmodium development in humans takes place in the liver. When the more mature plasmodium escape from the liver and enter the bloodstream, they infect red blood cells and multiply, causing the red blood cells to burst open after about 2 to 3 days and to release a new crop of parasites (plasmodium). The cycle of invasion, multiplication, and red blood cell rupture may be repeated many times.
Once diagnosed as malaria, either on a clinical or parasitological basis, the patient should be treated early with a safe and effective antimalarial medicine, the Roll Back Malaria goal being effective treatment within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. This is because a delay in treatment of uncomplicated malaria, specially in the non-immune patient could result in progression to severe disease which is associated with a high case fatality rate.
Quinine sulphate 10 mg salt/kg 8 hourly for seven days plus doxycycline 100 mg daily for 7 days. Patients will usually develop cinchonism (tinnitus, high-tone hearing loss, nausea, dysphoria) after 2-3 days but should be encouraged to complete the full course to avoid recrudescence. Tetracycline (4mg/kg daily for seven days) or the combination drug FansidarTM (25mg/kg sulfadoxine plus 1.25mg/kg pyrimethamine as a single dose) can be given as less expensive alternatives to doxycycline.
