Essay on Malaria: Symptoms and Methods of Prevention
Every 30 seconds, a kid dies from Malaria somewhere in the world! Malaria is a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Over fourty thousand people are in a Malaria-risk area. A lot of people do not worry about Malaria because they at not in an area that is affected by Malaria but when they travel to areas that are affected by Malaria they can very well be affected. 56,764,800 people died in 2018 and 285,000 died from Malaria. Malaria is a worldwide protozoan disease which is easy to prevent but very hard to treat.
The cause of Malaria is a protist or protozoan (a single celled eukaryote). The scientific names of some are Plasmodium, P. falciparum, P. malariae, P. ovale, and P. vivax. Malaria’s vector is a mosquito (female Anopheles). Malaria is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito to a person. Insects carrying this disease can be found in many places. They are not found in all warm climates. The mosquitoes are especially found in Africa and South Asia and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania. There is less risk to get Malaria at altitudes above 1500 meters. The risk of these mosquito biting a person can vary according to the season, but the highest risk is soon after the rainy season.
There are many symptoms a person would experience if they had Malaria. Some general symptoms are fevers, chills, headaches, nausea, and muscle pain. Some less common symptoms are sweating, chest or abdominal pain, or coughing. Symptoms may vary depending on when the mosquito bit the person. The parasite invades the red blood cells of a person and harms them. When these parasites get inside, they reproduce and soon the red blood cells that carry oxygen explode. Without treatment, possible complications that could lead to death are swelling of the blood vessels of the brain, or organ failure. Sometimes blood vessels might lead predispose people to infections and may increase susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, a study has found.
There are many different drug choices to try to cure Malaria. The main ones are anti-protozoan but some are antibiotic. Some drugs are Chloroquine, Atovaquone-proguanil, Artemether-lumefantrine, Mefloquine, Quinine, Quinidine, Doxycycline, Clindamycin, and Artesunate. The treatment a person takes can depend on a few different things like the species of the infecting parasite, the area where the infection was inquired or the clinical status of the patient.
There are also prevention drugs to take before going to where malaria is prone. Depending on age, the time a person leaves, and if they have any medical conditions they can take one of five different drugs. They can also try to prevent getting bit by mosquitoes. A few ways are to try to keep them outside by using doors with screens, stay inside during dusk and dawn, use mosquito repellent which does not kill the mosquito, but heavily discouraging them to bite. Another good idea is to wear long sleeves and long pants so not as much skin is exposed. These are not the only ways to prevent Malaria as there are many more. Without these medications, Malaria would have killed a lot more people than it has.
A survey was conducted of 15 people around the world. Each person answered every question. Nearly 94% of people had heard of Malaria before. Malaria is a very well-known disease after everyone it has killed. When asked how often they think a kid dies from Malaria, the respondents thought that every 30 minutes a kid died from Malaria but actually every 30 seconds a kid died from Malaria! On a scale of one to five, one being least dangerous and five being most dangerous, the average people thought Malaria was a four point four. Nearly 64% of the people surveyed knew that Malaria can not be transmitted by touch or sexual contact. Most of the people who took the survey were from America but some were from Brazil, Germany, and India.
In conclusion, Malaria is a strong disease which can be very easy to prevent, but very hard to treat. Many people die from this in East Asia and Africa. So why care? Because if people travel to this area they can get affected even if they don’t live in an area that is affected. So why help? Why donate to anything, the reason is to help people in need of help because their life is in danger. There are many different ways the disease can attack your body or that you can treat it but the treating process is a very complicated process and very expensive. Hopefully everybody helps by donating money to help people with Malaria because this disease is a very deadly one.
