Malaria - Causes



Malaria is caused by four different kinds of parasites belonging to the plasmodium family. A parasite is an organism that lives off another organism. Animals can also get malaria, but malaria cannot be passed from humans to animals or from animals to humans.

Malaria is transmitted by female mosquitoes that carry the parasite in their bodies. When the mosquito bites a human, it injects a small amount of its saliva into the human's bloodstream. The saliva contains parasites that travel through the person's bloodstream to his or her liver. There, the parasites reproduce. Eventually, they leave the liver and travel back into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, they begin to cause the symptoms of malaria.

Malaria cannot be passed directly from one human to another. It can be transmitted by a mosquito. A mosquito may bite a person infected with the malaria parasite. When it sucks the person's blood, it takes in some of the parasites. If the same mosquito bites a second person, it may transfer those parasites to the uninfected person.

Malaria can also be transmitted through blood transfusions. If an infected person donates blood, the blood will contain malaria parasites. If the blood is put into another person's body, the parasites will also flow into his or her bloodstream. For this reason, blood donors are often screened for the malaria parasite before they are allowed to give blood.

The incubation period for malaria varies considerably. An incubation period is the time between the mosquito bite and the time symptoms of malaria begin to appear. The incubation period differs depending on the kind of parasite involved. For the most serious form of malaria, the incubation period is eight to twelve days. In some rare forms of malaria, the incubation period can be as long as ten months.

Artemisinin:
An antimalarial herb used for many years in China under the name qiinghaosu.
Chloroquine:
An antimalarial drug first used in the 1940s as a substitute for quinine, and still widely used in Africa because of its relatively low cost.
Mefloquine:
An antimalarial drug developed by the U.S. Army in the early 1980s.
Quinine:
One of the first successful treatments for malaria, derived from the bark of the cinchona tree.
Sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine (trade name Fansidar):
An antimalarial drug developed in the 1960s, often used in areas where quinine and chloroquine are no longer effective.

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