Malaria causes damage to red blood cells and in severe cases, the
liver.
Malaria causes repeated episodes of fever which can overwhelm the
bodies defences and prove fatal.
The symptoms of malaria include fever (raised
temperature above normal), sweats and chills, headaches, muscle
pain, diarrhoea and a cough.
Part of the malarial protist's life cycle is inside an
animal - including us!
The mosquito is an animal vector - a 'carrier' - a means
of spreading a disease - it conveys the protist without any
ill-effect to itself - it just passes the protist on without
developing the disease!
In this case the mosquito insect is the
animal vector.
The female mosquito feeds by sucking blood
from warm-blooded animals - if the animal is infected with malaria,
the protist is spread when the same mosquito feeds on another animal.
When the mosquito does feed on another animal, it infects it by
inadvertently passing the malarial protist into the blood stream
when feeding - the mosquito's mouthparts are adapted to break
through skin and suck out blood, but the act of feeding inserts the
malaria protist at the same time.
Malaria is still a common infection in many parts of the world
but you can do some things to combat it.
The mosquito's life cycle is complicated.
Mosquitoes breed on standing water where
the eggs hatch and the larvae develop into pupas in the water.
You can reduce the spread of malaria by stopping the
mosquitoes from breeding e.g. affecting their breeding grounds by
draining swamps in various ways e.g.
You can spray swamps with insecticide
(biodegradable I hope).
You can spray oil on the water to stop
the larvae breathing.
As a precaution, people living in
areas with malaria risk should make sure any containers of
standing water from rain are got rid of to minimise risk of
mosquitoes breeding on the surface of the water.
For your own personal protection strategies from
insect bites and reduce the chance of spreading malarial disease you can
...
(i) use insecticide
sprays to kill the mosquitoes,
(ii) treat any exposed skin with
insect repellent,
(iii) employ
mosquito nets over your bed at night to stop getting bitten
while sleeping,
- all of which are designed to stop mosquitoes
biting you and passing the malaria disease on!
If infected, you can take an antimalarial
drugs to kill the specific harmful protist in your bloodstream.
