According to the World
Health Organization, Malaria
is the world's most important parasitic infectious disease, which is
transmitted by mosquitoes which breed in fresh or occasionally brackish water.
The
symptoms of malaria include fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, tiredness,
nausea and vomiting, diarrhoea, anaemia, and jaundice (yellow colouring of the
skin and eyes). Convulsions, coma, severe anaemia and kidney failure can also
occur. The severity and range of symptoms depend on the specific type of
malaria. In certain types, the infection can remain inactive for up to five
years and then recur. In areas with intense malaria transmission, people can
develop protective immunity after repeated infections. Without prompt and
effective treatment, malaria can evolve into a severe cerebral form followed by
death. Malaria is among the five leading causes of death in under-5-year-old
children in Africa.
Malaria is caused by four species of Plasmodium parasites
(P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae). People get malaria after
being bitten by a malaria-infected Anopheles mosquito. Some female mosquitoes
take their blood-meal at dusk and early evening, but others bite during the
night or in the early hours of the morning. When a mosquito bites an infected person,
it ingests malaria parasites with the blood. During a period of 8 to 35 days
(depending on the ambient temperature), the parasite develops in the mosquito.
The infective form (sporozoite) ends up in the salivary glands and is injected
into the new human host at subsequent blood-meals. In the human host, the
sporozoites migrate to the liver, multiply inside liver cells, and spread into
the bloodstream. The liver phase can last between 8 days and several months,
depending on the malaria species. Their growth and multiplication takes place
inside red blood cells. Clinical symptoms occur when the red blood cells break
up. If this happens in large numbers, the person experiences the characteristic
intermittent fevers of the disease. The released parasites invade other blood
cells. Most people begin feeling sick 10 days to 4 weeks after being infected.
Today,
malaria occurs mostly in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in
Africa south of the Sahara, South-East Asia, and the forest fringe zones in
South America. The ecology of the disease is closely associated with the
availability of water, as the larval stage of mosquitoes develops in different
kinds of water bodies. The mosquito species vary considerably in their
water-ecological requirements, (sun-lit or shaded, with or without aquatic
vegetation, stagnant or slowly streaming, fresh or brackish) and this affects
the disease ecology.
Owing to the deadly threat posed
by Malaria disease which is spread by Mosquitoes, and also to the fact that the
breeding of mosquito, especially around residential areas is largely dependent
on our surroundings, it behooves on all of us to ensure that our surroundings
are effectively managed. There
are prevention interventions that can save many people from getting sick or
dying from Malaria; the most common being:
- Avoiding standing water in the household
- The Use of Treated Malaria nets in the home
- Cutting long grasses
- Clearing mosquito breeding ground
- Promote education and public awareness
- Use of Intermittent Prevention Therapy (IPT) for pregnant women
One daily bases nowadays, I hear of different paid advertorial on
different drugs to cure malaria; and the imperative of having insecticide
treated mosquito nets spread around the bed of every citizens as a mechanism
for preventing the spread of malaria.
Generally, so much money have been wasted
on those advertisement and what will be more beneficial to citizens of the
Nigeria is the prevention of breeding of Malaria transferring agent – Mosquito through
an effective environmental care and management
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