Malaria Essay

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Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world's population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world's cases occur and where eighty percent of the …show more content…
To do this, a doctor would take a drop of blood, stain it, and look at it under a microscope to see if there were any parasites in it. Diagnosing malaria by the symptoms it causes is not as exact as blood examination, but is used a lot in Africa, where most cases are treated at home. In most cases, symptoms appear in ten to forty days. However, they can appear as early as eight days after the bite and as late as one year after the bite. One species of the parasite has been known to remain dormant in the liver for up to four years. Malaria has a lot of symptoms. Some of the most common symptoms of malaria include fever, chills, headache, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, renal (liver) dysfunction, sweating, muscle pain, and even coma. The symptoms of malaria are some of the same symptoms associated with the flu and that is why so many cases of malaria are improperly diagnosed every year.
When traveling to an area of the world that is high in malaria-carrying mosquitoes, you should take certain precautions. The best way to prevent a case of malaria is to take prescription drugs. You should begin taking the drug two weeks before you arrive and continue taking the drug for four weeks after you leave. However, getting the necessary vaccinations does not necessarily mean that you will not contract the disease. There are other precautionary steps you should take before traveling to a malaria-risk area. You should wear
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