Malaria.com

Malaria symptoms

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QUESTION:

What are the symptoms?

ANSWER:

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. Symptoms usually appear between 10 and 15 days after the mosquito bite. If not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs. Infection with one type of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, if not promptly treated, may cause kidney failure, seizures, mental confusion, coma, and death. In many parts of the world, the parasites have developed resistance to a number of malaria medicines.

Malaria and Jaundice

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QUESTION:

Why are patients suffering with malaria more susceptible to jaundice?

ANSWER:

The icterus/jaundice is usually from lysis/breakdown of infected red blood cells as they rupture and release new malaria parasites into the bloodstream.  If only 1% of red cells are infected, this will be mild.  If “parasitaemia” is severe/life threatening, say, 10% of red cells infected, then the jaundice will be dramatic as well as a risk for catastrophic organ failure from cell breakdown, iron deposition into capillaries/small blood vessels in brain/kidneys/liver. In such cases, exchange blood transfusion could be life-saving.