Malaria Symptoms
Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite that lives part of its life in humans and part in mosquitoes.
Worldwide, threatening the lives of more than one-third of the worlds, it remains one of the major killers of humans population. Malaria thrives in the tropical areas of Asia, Africa, and South and Central America, where it strikes millions of people. Sadly, as many as 2.7 million of its victims, mostly infants and children, die yearly.
Symptoms of Malaria Malaria typically produces a string of recurrent attacks, or paroxysms, each of which has three stages
chills, followed by fever, and then sweating. Along with chills, the person is likely to have headache, nausea, and vomiting. Within an hour or two, the persons temperature rises, and the skin feels hot and dry. Then, as the body temperature falls, a drenching sweat begins. The person, feeling tired and weak, is likely to fall asleep.
The symptoms first appear some 10 to 16 days after the infectious mosquito bite and coincide with the bursting of infected red blood cells. When many red blood cells are infected and break at the same time, malaria attacks can recur at regular time periods,
every 2 days for P. vivax malaria and P. ovale, and every 3 days for P. malariae.
With P. vivax malaria, the patient may feel fine between attacks. Even without treatment, the paroxysms subside in a few weeks. A person with P. falciparum malaria, however, is likely to feel miserable even between attacks and, without treatment, may die. One reason P. falciparum malaria is so virulent is that the parasite can infect red blood cells in all stages of development, leading to very high parasite levels in the blood. In contrast, P. vivax parasites infect only young red blood cells, which means the number of parasites in the blood does not reach the same high levels as seen in P. falciparum infection.
Malaria
infection often initially appears to be a flu-like illness or some other viral
disease, be wary if you develop an illness with fever while living in a
malaria-endemic area or within 12 months after traveling to a high-risk malaria
region. See your doctor and tell your doctor where you've traveled.
Malaria Symptoms to M
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