April 25 World Malaria Day
Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest
and most prolific killers .These tiny creatures kill over 6 lakh people every
years ,through diseases like malaria and dengue . This world malaria day lets
pledge to kill every single mosquito.
What is malaria?
Malaria is an infectious disease that is caused by
mosquito-borne plasmodium parasite which infects the red blood cells. It’s one
of the deadliest diseases in India. There’s no vaccine for malaria yet and
immunity occurs naturally through repeated infection. Common symptoms are
fever, chills, vomiting, nausea, body ache, headache, cough and diarrhoea. If
untreated, it can lead to complications like jaundice, dehydration, anaemia,
brain malaria, liver failure and kidney failure. Children, pregnant women, and
the elderly – anyone with decreased immunity is at a greater risk.
How does one get malaria?
The life cycle of malaria is complicated and it involves two
hosts- the human being and the mosquito. Once bitten by a female anopheles
mosquito, the malarial parasite enters the blood stream. It travels all through
his blood stream to reach the liver. In the liver the parasite matures and
multiplies. Some of the parasites stay there whereas the other parasites move
out from the liver attacking red blood cells. The parasite then multiplies in
the red blood cells. In the next 48-72 hours, more parasites are released into
the blood. This is the reason why the chills of malaria are generally
seen after 48 to 72 hours corresponding to the release of the malarial parasite
in the blood.
With three out of four people being at risk of malaria in
South-East Asia region, World Health Organization today called for greater
investment in the battle against malaria on the occasion of World Malaria Day.
Even though the number of confirmed malaria cases in the Region, which is home
to a quarter of the world’s population decreased from 2.9 million in 2000 to 2
million in 2012, the disease remains a significant threat to the lives of
people.
’1.4 billion people continue to be at risk of malaria in South-East
Asia. They are often the poorest, including workers in hilly or forested areas,
in development projects such as mining, agroforestry, road and dam
constructions, and upland subsistence farming in rural and urban areas,’ said
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia. Stressing
that the funding needs to be increased for diagnostics, drugs,
insecticide-treated mosquito nets, and research and response to drug and
insecticide resistance, Singh said, ‘We need to empower communities to protect
themselves. Eliminating malaria will take greater political will.
India is expected to decrease malaria case incidence by 50?75
per cent by 2015. Sri Lanka is in the elimination phase with no indigenous case
reported since November 2012. Maldives has been malaria-free since 1984.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nepal, and Sri Lanka
reduced the incidence of malaria cases by more than 75 per cent from 2000 to
2012. Thailand and Timor-Leste are on track to achieve a decrease of over 75
per cent. But the gains in malaria control, although substantial, could be
reversed due to increasing parasite resistance to drugs, mosquito resistance to
insecticides and re-introduction of transmission in places where the disease
has been eliminated. The emergence of artemisinin resistance in Cambodia,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam threatens the global achievements in malaria
control and elimination. Artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACT) is currently
the first line treatment for the most lethal type of malaria, Plasmodium
falciparum. Resistance to this drug would compromise the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people affected with malaria, and there is an urgent need to
invest in ways to contain the spread of resistance to these drugs, said,Singh.Another
danger lies in the fact that the Anopheles mosquitoes, which carry malaria
parasites, are increasingly become resistant to insecticides. ‘Investments are
needed to develop new tools, to conduct operational research to address
bottlenecks in malaria control programmes, and to scale-up and ensure rational
use of existing interventions,’ said Singh.
WASH Related Diseases
Malaria
Malaria, the world's most important
parasitic infectious disease, is transmitted by mosquitoes which breed in fresh
or occasionally brackish water.
The disease and how it affects people
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.
The cause
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.
Distribution
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. Climate change (global
warming) appears to be moving the altitude limits of malaria to higher
elevations, for example in the East African highlands and Madagascar.
The construction of irrigation
systems and reservoirs in some parts of the world can have a dramatic impact on
malaria distribution and on the intensity of its transmission.
Scope of the Problem
WHO estimates 300-500 million cases
of malaria, with over one million deaths each year.
The main burden of malaria (more than
90%) is in Africa south of the Sahara with an estimated annual number of deaths
over 1 million. Two thirds of the remaining burden hits six countries: Brazil,
Colombia, India, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam. In many parts the
natural habitat sustains intense malaria transmission; in others, water
resources development (irrigation, dams, urban water supply) has exacerbated
the transmission intensity and caused the distribution of the disease to
spread. In yet others, for example the Central Asian republics of the CIS,
malaria has returned as a result of a breakdown in water management and
maintenance problems of local irrigation systems.
To be declared malaria free India
Has to go through four phases:
Malaria control, pre elimination, elimination and prevention of re-introduction.
India is currently in the control phase and will enter the pre elimination in
2017 with a target to bring down cases to less one person at risk per 1000 in a
year to reach elimination status . Nearly 85% of the country’s population is at
risk of malaria. Almost 65% of cases occurs in poor and marginalized population
. Unlike in Africa where malaria is one of the leading causes of under five
deaths ,most reported cases in India are in the productive age group of 15 -45
years.
Source
:
Hindustan
times
Best practice to eradicate malaria are to keep cleanness around your house, wear long sleeves cloths, apply mosquito repellent and more. Symptoms of malaria
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