Antibodies have drawn a spotlight over the past year and a half as scientists and lay people alike have asked how long the infection-fighting proteins persist in the face of a formidable enemy—a pandemic virus that has ...
Unusually high levels of blood congestion in vessels feeding the brain may lead to severe swelling, scientists have found in a discovery that solves a longstanding malaria mystery: how the infection deleteriously impacts ...
Two experimental malaria vaccines are not only safe for humans, one of those immunizations prompted a slowing of the malaria parasite's replication in the bloodstream of clinical trial participants, scientists have found ...
Scientists are unraveling the complex mystery underlying how the immune system mounts a potent defense against one of the world's most relentless killers—the deadly parasites that cause the worst form of malaria.
The secret of how the Dantu genetic blood variant helps to protect against malaria has been revealed for the first time by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge and the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust ...
Sep 16, 2020
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When a person gets malaria, a rhythmic dance takes place inside their body. The disease's telltale signs—cyclical fevers and chills—are caused by successive broods of parasites multiplying in sync inside red blood cells, ...
May 14, 2020
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Over the past several decades, malaria diagnosis has changed very little. After taking a blood sample from a patient, a technician smears the blood across a glass slide, stains it with a special dye, and looks under a microscope ...
Aug 31, 2014
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Researchers have debated for more than two decades the likely impacts, if any, of global warming on the worldwide incidence of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that infects more than 300 million people each year.
Mar 6, 2014
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(Medical Xpress)—Rice University researchers have developed a noninvasive technology that accurately detects low levels of malaria infection through the skin in seconds with a laser scanner. The "vapor nanobubble" technology ...
Dec 31, 2013
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(Medical Xpress)—Researchers in Australia have found that a protein in platelets found naturally in blood has a protective effect against malaria. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes how ...
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases progressing to coma or death. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Five species of Plasmodium can infect and be transmitted by humans. Severe disease is largely caused by Plasmodium falciparum while the disease caused by Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium malariae is generally a milder disease that is rarely fatal. Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonosis that causes malaria in macaques but can also infect humans.
Malaria transmission can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites by distribution of mosquito nets and insect repellents, or by mosquito-control measures such as spraying insecticides and draining standing water (where mosquitoes breed). Despite a clear need, no vaccine offering a high level of protection currently exists. Efforts to develop one are ongoing. A number of medications are also available to prevent malaria in travelers to malaria-endemic countries (prophylaxis).
A variety of antimalarial medications are available. Severe malaria is treated with intravenous or intramuscular quinine or, since the mid-2000s, the artemisinin derivative artesunate, which is superior to quinine in both children and adults. Resistance has developed to several antimalarial drugs, most notably chloroquine.
There were an estimated 225 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2009. An estimated 655,000 people died from malaria in 2010, a 5% decrease from the 781,000 who died in 2009 according to the World Health Organization's 2011 World Malaria Report, accounting for 2.23% of deaths worldwide. Ninety percent of malaria-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, with ~60% of deaths being young children under the age of five. Plasmodium falciparum, the most severe form of malaria, is responsible for the vast majority of deaths associated with the disease. Malaria is commonly associated with poverty, and can indeed be a cause of poverty and a major hindrance to economic development.
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