What happens after you get malaria?

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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 treated promptly, these effects should reverse, but in some cases, some neurological damage remains.

Similarly, children who are affected by malaria while still in the womb or during birth (“congenital” malaria) may experience low birth weight or retarded growth, which can have health implications later in life.

How to Control Malaria

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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 of prevention, education, research and treatment. In more detail:

Prevention: This is arguably one of the keys to sustainably reducing malaria burdens and even eliminating infections. Central to this goal has been the distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated bednets, which prevent people from being bitten by infected mosquitoes while they sleep at night. Unfortunately, some recent research has just been published which suggests that bednets might be contributing to insecticide resistance in mosquitoes, as well as increased rates of malaria in adults due to decreasing natural immunity. As such, it may be that more research is needed in order to determine the most effective and efficient ways of using bednets to prevent malaria infection, particularly in high-risk groups like young children and pregnant women. Another arm of prevention is reducing the number of mosquitoes in an area (called vector control), and thus preventing transmission from occurring at all – this can be achieved through insecticide spraying but also filling in the stagnant pools of water that mosquitoes lay their eggs in. Vector control was highly successful in reducing malaria transmission in the United States and Mediterranean in the years after World War II.

Education: Through education, people living in at-risk areas for malaria transmission can learn about ways to prevent the disease, as well as what to do if they suspect they are infected. Similarly, education is important for travellers visiting malarial areas, so they know the best ways in which to avoid being infected.

Research: Understanding the distribution, factors affecting transmission and the development of new strategies for control and treatment is going to be crucial in the fight against malaria, and particularly in high-burden areas such as Africa. Similarly, scientists are busily looking for new compounds to treat malaria, as well as the ever-elusive malaria vaccine. If such a vaccine could be developed, it would be a huge step forward in the fight against malaria; recently, a study was published which reported the results of the first Phase 3 clinical trial of a malaria vaccine, in African children. The vaccine appeared to confer approximately a 50% level of protection against malaria; while this is a start, it perhaps did not live up to many people’s hopes of a new method for controlling malaria.

Treatment: Hand in hand with treatment comes diagnosis; if a person can have their infection easily, accurately and cheaply diagnosed, then they will be able to access effective treatment more rapidly, thus improving their chances of a swift recovery. As such, countries in Africa are working hard to provide health systems capable of local diagnosis and availability of treatment, so that people don’t have to travel far to have their infections cured.

Taken together, these four strategies are having some success even in the world’s poorest and most malaria-endemic regions, especially in decreasing the number of malaria deaths. Decreasing the overall number of infections will be yet a greater challenge, but one which the world, especially through commitment to the Millenium Development Goals, is dedicated to overcoming.

 

 

Signs of Malaria

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Hello my question is how do I see malaria signs if i haven’t gone to check yet?

 

The key is to recognise whether you have any potential symptoms of malaria, or if you have been bitten a lot by mosquitoes recently and live in an area where malaria is present. Malaria can have many different symptoms, but the initial signs are similar to a flu-like illness, with high fever, chills, headache and muscle soreness or aches. A characteristic sign of malaria is cyclical fever, with peaks of severity every two or three days. Additionally, some people will experience nausea, coughing, vomiting and/or diarrhea.

Because these symptoms are quite generic of a wide variety of illnesses, if you live in a malaria-endemic region, it is crucial to be tested when you develop such symptoms. If you have recently traveled to a malarial area and start to experience these signs of infection, similarly you should inform your doctor of your travel history, as otherwise they might not recognize your symptoms as potentially that of malaria.

If you live in a malarial area, you can always visit a clinic and see if they will do a test to screen you for malaria, even if you don’t have the above symptoms. People who live in malarial areas develop partial immunity to the disease, meaning that new infections do not always present themselves as acutely as when they were children, or in people who are being infected for the first time. As such, some people can have low levels of parasite in their blood and while they may feel tired or a bit under the weather, do not have specific symptoms. This is especially the case for the less severe and deadly forms of malaria, such as Plasmodium vivax, P. ovale and P. malariae, so if you live in an area where any of these three are present, it might be worth getting a malaria test even if you don’t have symptoms.

However, it is very important not to accept treatment unless you are confirmed as having a positive diagnosis for malaria; taking treatment without having the disease can lead to resistance to the medication, and you may also experience side effects, which, though usually mild, are still probably better to avoid!

How to Prevent Malaria

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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 achieved through the distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated bednets, which prevent people from being bitten by infected mosquitoes as they sleep at night. While this has drastically reduced the number of cases of malaria in some settings, and particularly in certain high risk groups such as children under five and pregnant women, some worrying new data just was published which suggested that in high transmission zones, bednets may actually exacerbate re-infection rates for older children and adults, and lead to insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. As such, while bednets clearly are still a key prevention strategy, their effect should be closely monitored.

Secondly, there is diagnosis and treatment. These go hand in hand, as they usually require the availability of health services or health professionals. If malaria infections are rapidly and accurately diagnosed, appropriate treatment can be swiftly given, preventing the progression of the disease and allowing the patient to recover. Appropriate administration of medication, as well as adherence to the full course of the drugs, can also help to prevent drug-resistance from emerging.

Finally, there are on-going research initiatives looking to find new ways to tackle malaria. For example, many scientists are involved in the search for a malaria vaccine, which, if safe, effective, and sufficiently cheap, could transform the way we think about fighting malaria. Similarly, due to the unfortunate circumstance of ever-increasing drug-resistance, particularly in Plasmodium falciparum, new types of medication are constantly being tested and trialled. The combination of all these efforts has managed to reduce the mortality of malaria greatly over the past few years; the aim now, espoused by organisations such as Malaria No More, is to get to a point where deaths from malaria are eliminated by the year 2015.

 

History of Fighting Malaria

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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 medicine for more than 2000 years to treat malaria, and compounds extracted from that same herb are the basis for some of the most effective modern medications, known as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). Indigenous tribes in the Americas also had traditional medicines to treat malaria; having conquered the New World, the Spanish learned of a bark, from the Cinchona tree, which could cure malaria. Quinine, extracted from this same tree bark, is still used today to treat malaria.

However, back then the causes of malaria were not known—it wasn’t until the late 19th century that a more complete understanding of malaria would emerge. The first key development in this process was the observation of the parasites that cause malaria in a patient’s blood, which was first done by Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran in 1880.

A few years later, in 1897, a British army doctor called Ronald Ross discovered that the parasite was transmitted via the bite of infected mosquitoes, of the genus Anopheles. This latter finding allowed for the emergence of the first programmes for malaria control, which focused on vector control, through insecticide use and elimination of water bodies used by the mosquito larvae. An early example of the success of this approach came in the building of the Panama Canal; started in 1906, progress was initially slow, due to the enormous proportion of workers who fell ill from yellow fever and malaria. With vector control, the number of cases plummeted, and the canal was finally opened in 1914.

While prophylactic quinine had also been part of the control strategy during the building of the Panama Canal, it played a much more secondary role to vector control. Using similar strategies, focusing primarily on killing adult mosquitoes through insecticide spraying (mainly DDT), the United States of America successfully eliminated malaria from its shores in the early 1950s. Prior to this, transmission had occurred across most of the south-east of the country.

In the last 50 years, access to early diagnosis and effective treatment have gained a more prominent role among many malaria control strategies, although prevention is still seen as crucial. Many developing countries, where malaria is still rife, have set up national control programmes, which seek to ensure that all communities have access to adequate care and information about malaria prevention.

A key tool in the prevention arsenal has been the long-lasting insecticide treated bednet; sleeping underneath one prevents bites from the mosquitoes that carry malaria, which are most active in the evenings and at night, especially in children and pregnant women, who are among the people most at risk from infection. Bednet distribution has been a major focus of many malaria campaigns, and very successful in many places; in 2008, for example, bednet coverage was estimated at over 80% of the at-risk population in Djibouti, Mali, Ethiopia and Sao Tome and Principe.

Symptoms of Malaria

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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 falciparum, if not promptly treated, may cause kidney failure, seizures, mental confusion, coma, and death. Since the early symptoms of malaria are very similar to many other conditions, including flu and the common cold, if you live in a malaria area it is important not to ignore these symptoms but to seek medical help and have a blood test to check for malaria early on. 

What does malaria cause?

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QUESTION:

What does malaria cause?

ANSWER:

Malaria is a disease. It is caused by tiny single-celled parasites called Plasmodium, which are transmitted through the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. There are many symptoms that occur as a result of infection with malaria, namely fever, chills, headaches and nausea, among others. Malaria can be a very serious disease, especially if not treated promptly, and so when spending time in malaria-infection areas (such as many areas of low to moderate elevation in the tropics and sub-tropics) precautions should be taken to avoid mosquito bites and thus infection. If a person finds themselves suffering from some of the above symptoms after being in a malaria transmission region, it is crucially important they get diagnosed straight away; if they do indeed have malaria, then they can be given treatment to facilitate a quick and safe recovery.

Malaria and stomach pains

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QUESTION:

Will malaria cause severe stomach pain?

ANSWER:

In some cases, yes, malaria can cause stomach cramps and pain. It also often causes nausea and vomiting. It is important to seek medical attention if you think you have symptoms of malaria; a quick and accurate diagnosis will lead to effective and efficient treatment, which improves chances of a rapid recovery.

Vomiting During Malaria

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QUESTION:

How can I reduce vomiting during malaria?

ANSWER:

The most important thing to do when suffering from malaria is to get diagnosed promptly by a doctor or clinic and then receive appropriate treatment. This is the quickest way to reduce symptoms of the disease, such as vomiting, as well as prevent progression of the disease. Once treatment has begun to be administered, your doctor or nurse may also be able to give you medication to reduce nausea and vomiting, but you should certainly consult with medical professionals before taking any other medication while being treated for malaria.