WHAT IS MALARIA?

Malaria is a parasitic disease. Its symptoms include fever, chills, sweats, headache, body aches, nausea, and vomiting. The symptoms may sometimes recur every 48 to 72 hours, depending on the type of parasite involved and how long the person has had the disease.

HOW DOES MALARIA SPREAD?

1. Malaria parasites- protozoans called Plasmodia - are introduced into the human bloodstream through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito.

2. The parasites find their way into the infected person's liver cells, where the parasites multiply.

3. When a liver cell ruptures, it releases the parasites, which then invade the infected person's red blood cells. There, the parasites continue to multiply.

4. When a red blood cell ruptures, it releases the parasites, which invade still more red blood cells.

5. The cycle of red blood cell invasion and rupture continues. The infected person typically manifests symptoms of malaria each time the red blood cells rupture.

A human can get the malaria parasite from an infected mosquito. Conversely, a noninfected mosquito can get the malaria parasite from biting an infected human. Then the infected mosquito can pass the parasite to another human.

The World Health Organization estimates that in 2013, more than 198 million people were infected with malaria and an estimated 584,000 died as a result of it. Nearly 4 out of 5 casualties were children under five years of age. The disease presents threat in about a hundred countries and territories throughout the world, putting some 3.2 billion people at risk.

HOW CAN YOU PROTECT YOURSELF?
If you are in a land where malaria is endemic...

- Use a bed net or a mosquito net. It should be
a. treated with insecticide.
b. free of any holes or tears.
c. tucked completely under the mattress.

- Use indoor residual spraying in your home.

- If possible, install screens on doors and windows, and use air-conditioners and fans, which may discourage mosquitoes from settling.

- Wear light-coloured clothing that fully covers your skin.

- Whenever possible, avoid areas of brush, where mosquitoes swarm, and standing water, where they breed.

- If you are infected, get treatment promptly.

DID YOU KNOW?

Children and pregnant women are the most at risk of serious illness if they contact malaria.

In Africa alone, one child dies every minute from malaria.

In rare cases, people have contacted malaria through a blood transfusion.

WHAT MORE CAN YOU DO?

1. Remove mosquito- breeding sites around the home.

2. Obtain medication only from authorized sources. (Poor- quality or imitation medication can prolong the illness or increase the risk of death.)

3. Make use of government or community health-care programs.

Untreated malaria can cause severe anemia and can quickly become life threatening. Seek Medical treatment immediately, before symptoms get worse, especially in CHILDREN and PREGNANT mothers.

Thanks for this Info

ok

Hmmmmm

Thanks op

I think the curative measures are more vast in contrast to the preventive measures

Am currently treating malaria,my mum's like my own type of sickness,particularly malaria,scares her and makes her restless _ so she didn't go to her workplace. There was a time she threatened to give me deep and painful marks on my face with razor blade peradventure i were an #abiku , i wouldn't venture to go/die. (i was angry _ thank heavens my dad scolded her...)

Well, sleeping under mosquito net is a reliable preventive measure, but people claim that mosquito nets poses great harm to one's skin ... what then is the use?

okay its noted,