Malaria Mosquito Eggs

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QUESTION

Where do Anopheles mosquito lay their eggs?

ANSWER

Female Anopheles mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing, often stagnant, pools of fresh water. These larvae can be identified in ponds and puddles because unlike other mosquito larvae, they position themselves parallel with the surface of the water, allowing them to breathe air despite not having a respiratory siphon (instead, they have spiracles on their body).

Different species of Anopheles can tolerate very different larval habitats, including very brackish water (high salt content) in mangrove swamps and estuaries to pristine freshwater and also varying degrees of sun exposure and vegetative cover. Many different fish and aquatic invertebrates can predate on mosquito larvae, many of which have been used in attempts to control mosquito populations throughout the world.

Am I more susceptible to malaria?

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QUESTION

I contracted common malaria, vivax?, when i was 20 yrs old from long visit to Papua NewGuinea, 1970. Returned to USA and was treated with chloro, primaquine drugs and really no problems since treatment.

Now going to Thailand for week, Chiang Mai and region. If bitten by local malarial mosq. am i more likely to recur? And should I certainly choose prophylaxis? thnx

ANSWER

If you were treated successfully with chloroquine and primaquine then there is no reason for your malaria to reoccur. Since it has been a long time since you had malaria, you probably also don’t have any antibodies against the parasite in your system anymore; this just means you don’t have any extra immunity against P. vivax (which you might have done if you had returned to a malaria area, and particularly one with the same strain of P. vivax as that which infected you, within a few months or years of being infected the first time), but it doesn’t mean you will be any more susceptible than someone who never had malaria.

In terms of where you are going, the city of Chiang Mai itself is not considered to have malaria transmission, but the areas surrounding it are, particularly as you get closer to the Burmese border. As such, if you will be travelling in rural and/or forested areas, you might want to consider taking prophylactic medication (and other preventative measures, like sleeping under a long-lasting insecticide treated bednet).

Thailand unfortunately has seen the emergence of resistance to a couple widely used prophylactic measures, namely chloroquine and mefloquine (sold as Lariam), so these are not appropriate preventative medicine in this region. Instead, you should consider taking doxycycline or atovaquone-proguanil (sold as Malarone).

Malaria or Not?

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QUESTION

I went to Luanda, Angola and Port Hartcourt, Nigeria, Onne, Nigeria and Warri, Nigeria a few times. I suffer with voice problems, muscle control on my right side and some joint pains that have not been explained by my doctors.

I have been to doctors in Houston, Tx., New Orleans, La., New Iberia, La. and Franklin, La. and they all say the same thing. They don’t know what’s wrong with me. It maybe malaria that has laid dormant for nearly three years. I need to find out who can diagnose this for me and get me some help. My symptoms go back to 2009 with the balance being the first problem I noticed. The loss of my voice came later. I took off work for 5 months. Help me find someone close that might be able to help.

ANSWER

Although joint pains are associated sometimes with malaria infection, the most common symptoms are high fevers and chills—it would be unusual to suffer problems of with balance, the voice or muscle spasms.

A blood test is the only way to test for malaria for sure—this may be possible at a local travel clinic or any hospital which has a tropical medicine specialist.

I am not sure of any such exact clinics/hospitals in your area. However, I believe the CDC website has a list of local resources for tropical medicine. Otherwise, the CDC itself is located in Atlanta, GA, and they are certainly able to perform malaria testing, as well as give you advice as to whether you might be suffering from some other disease acquired internationally.

New Treatment for Malaria

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QUESTION

New treatment for malaria?

ANSWER

The most recently developed type of treatment for malaria actually has very ancient origins. The herb wormwood (Artemisia annua) has been used in ancient Chinese medicine for hundreds, even thousands, of years to cure certain fevers.

In the 1970s, a Chinese research program intensively sought new medications against malaria, as part of their Vietnam war effort. They re-discovered wormwood, and from it isolated the compound artemisinin, which is highly effective against malaria parasites in the blood, and kills them very quickly. Due to its quick action against malaria, there was concern that use of artemisinin alone would lead to resistance developing rapidly in the malaria parasite, as was seen with chloroquine in many parts of the world. As such, the World Health Organisation recommended that artemisinin should only be used in combination with another anti-malarial drug with a longer lasting action, to prevent resistance.

A number of such compounds, containing artemisinin derivatives and a second anti-malarial, have now been developed. These are collectively called “artemisinin-based combination therapies,” or ACTs. Some of the main artemisinin compounds used in these drugs are artemether, artesunate and dihydroartemisinin, and the brand names of the drugs as they are marketed (in combination with other compounds, such as lumefantrine, piperaquine and pyronaridine) include Coartem, Pyramax and Duo-Cotecxin.

How Many Affected by Malaria

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QUESTION

About how many people in the world are affected, die and survive malaria?

ANSWER

It has been estimated that about 3.3 billion people, or close to half the world’s population, is at risk of malaria infection at least at some point during the year. However, preventative measures mean that many fewer actually contract malaria in a given year—still, there are an estimated 216 million cases of malaria every year; of these, about 655,000 patients die. Most of these in children under the age of five, and most in sub-Saharan Africa.

Where Does Malaria Occur?

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QUESTION

Where does malaria occur?

ANSWER

Malaria has at some stage or another occurred on every continent of the world except Antarctica. Currently, cases of human malaria are mainly found in Central and South America, parts of the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, south Asia, south-east Asia, and the Pacific Islands of Oceania. Control efforts, mainly consisting of reducing populations of vector mosquitoes, has eliminated transmission from North America, most of Europe, most of North Africa and parts of the Middle east and Asia. Currently, the vast majority of malaria mortalities occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and mainly in children under the age of five.

Malaria Deaths

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QUESTION 

what percent of people die each year from Malaria?

ANSWER

There are an estimated 216 million cases of malaria each year around the world, and about 655,000 deaths due to malaria. This means that overall mortality from malaria is actually very low, around 0.3%, of those who get infected. However, the majority of the people who die from malaria each year are children, and in sub-Saharan Africa.

In terms of the proportion of global deaths that are caused by malaria each year, the percentage is also very small—only about 1%. But that is still a lot compared to most other diseases, and malaria is still one of the leading causes of death of children under 5 in many parts of the tropics, and especially in Africa.

Malaria and Employees

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QUESTION

I have a domestic employee that has malaria. I also have a 1 year old baby at home. Is it safe to keep her in employ or should I grant her leave until she is fully recovered?

ANSWER

Malaria cannot be transmitted between people directly. It is transmitted via the bite of an infected mosquito. As such, the only way your baby could get malaria from your employee is if a mosquito bit the employee, then directly bit your infant. Therefore, the best way to prevent transmission of malaria in this case is to make sure both your employee and your child sleep under long-lasting insecticide treated bednets.

You should also make sure your windows and doors are screened, to prevent the entry of mosquitoes that could carry malaria. These mosquitoes feed mainly at night and in the evenings and early mornings, so during these times, you should take extra precautions against getting bitten, such as wearing long sleeved clothing and covering exposed skin in insect repellent. If you have air conditioning, having this on at night can also prevent mosquitoes from entering rooms. You should also make sure your employee gets appropriate treatment for malaria and takes the full course of medication.

Malaria in Hong Kong and China

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QUESTION

Is malaria a risk in Hong Kong and Southern China?

ANSWER

There is no reported malaria transmission in Hong Kong, nor in the provinces directly bordering it in southern China. However, there is some risk of malaria in other parts of southern and central China, notably in the provinces of Anhui, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, and Yunnan, though rare cases may also be observed in other rural parts of the country between December and May below <1,500 m (4,921 ft).

Organizations Against Malaria

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QUESTION

What is a good organization that helps stop malaria?

ANSWER

There are many organizations that work very hard to control malaria. The most well known are those that design policies and implement projects to control malaria on the ground, in places where the disease is most deadly. These include multilateral international organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization (as well as its regional counterparts, such as the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO), country-led aid organizations such as DIfD in the UK and USAID in the US (the President’s Malaria Initiative, PMI, is largely implemented via USAID) as well as non-governmental organizations which seek to improve the lives of people in developing countries, such as Save the Children, Malaria No More and many other such groups.

Some of these groups have also joined forces to create multi-faceted organizations and programmes dedicated to controlling malaria, such as the Roll Back Malaria consortium and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which provides millions of dollars of funding to projects throughout the world.

Secondly, there is also an aspect to malaria control which is not so easily seen on the ground, and that is the vast numbers of researchers who are dedicated to finding new drugs to treat malaria, new methods for control and new insecticides to prevent transmission from mosquitoes, among many other examples. These researchers are found in universities and research institutes all over the world, including many in sub-Saharan Africa, India and other places where the burden of malaria is very high.

On our website, you can find some personal accounts of scientists, working for the global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, who are doing drug discovery research in Bangalore, India. There are also blog posts from scientists at Princeton looking at transmission of malaria between monkeys and humans in south-east Asia, and information about cutting edge research at the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco, whose members conduct work on a variety of aspects of malaria biology and control initiatives.