scienceblogs.com
Red blood cell bursting after infection of malaria
Malaria kills more than 3,000 children under the age of five each year and more than 1.5 million each year. According to the "WHO" it has an infection rate of approximately 400 to 500 million a year. The majority of these cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa where poverty is the biggest problem facing this epidemic. Malaria is both a treatable and preventable pathogen with the technology we have today. Malaria is estimated to cost continently 12 billion annually and this pathogen accounts for one in every ten death of children in developing countries. The hope project is focusing on prevention to reduce the effects of this fatal pathogen in Equatorial Guinea.
Malaria is transmitted to its host via the female Anopheles mosquito. This pathogen changes the red blood cells in which it lives causing the cells to stick to the walls of the blood vessels and obstructing blood. This is a major problem when it occurs in organ such as the brain and heart. This pathogen also digests the blood cells hemoglobin stopping oxygen flow to the body. The life cycle of the malaria pathogen starts when a mosquito infects a new host with sprozoites. The malaria Sprozoites then sets chorus for the liver where they invade the liver cells and multiply for approximately two weeks. Then they move into the blood stream where they enter into a three stage life cycle that ends in the red blood cells bursting open spilling the pathogen through out it host.
Although there are preventable measures available there has been little to no improvement in the areas where this pathogen is of great risk, where the most sever forms of malaria caused by Plasmodum flaciparum and Plasmodum vivax are prevalent. Symptoms for malaria include dizziness, shorten breath, fever, chills, nausea, coma, and death. This pathogen has been extremely successful, because its lifecycle occurs mainly in the liver and the red blood cells where it is almost undetectable by the immune system, but the spleen has had some success destroying the malaria pathogen during its regulatory blood cycling. Mutation such as sickle cell have also shown resistances to this pathogen, humans that are positive for sickle cell can not contract this disease, but children who have both recessive genes for sickles cell die at a relatively young age.
Treatment for Malaria include artemisinin-based combination therapies, Chiloquin and sulfadoxine-pyrmethamine, but resistance to these drugs is becoming increasingly prevalent. Prevention for this disease includes spraying pesticides, providing mosquito netting and using repellent when out doors. Currently there are no vaccines available, but research is currently being done, lack of funding due to the disease region destitution is a major problem. Although the lack of vaccine there are anti-malaria medications that the been successful.
whyfiles.org
Life cycle of the malaria pathogen
female Anopheles mosquito.