Malaria how does it kill you

Travelers that become ill with flu-like symptoms, either while traveling in a malaria-risk area or after returning home, should seek immediate medical attention and share their travel history. For more information, visit the Centers of Disease Control. Your contribution will help us ensure no child dies from the bite of a malaria mosquito. We have the tools to end deaths from malaria now.

Let's make malaria no more! There were an estimated million malaria cases across 87 endemic countries worldwide in , mostly pregnant women and children. Malaria also can cause lasting learning disabilities. While not all adult cases of malaria are fatal, the disease keeps adults out of work and robs families of essential income.

The cost in lost economic growth is exponentially greater. Today, the world is better prepared to end deaths from this disease than ever before. Currently, no vaccine is available for use in the United States, although one vaccine has a license in Europe.

In the early s, advances in treatment eliminated malaria from the U. However, between 1, and 2, cases still occur each year, mostly in those who have recently traveled to malaria-endemic areas. Doctors divide malaria symptoms into two categories : Uncomplicated and severe malaria. A doctor would give this diagnosis when symptoms are present, but no symptoms occur that suggest severe infection or dysfunction of the vital organs.

As symptoms resemble those of flu , they may remain undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in areas where malaria is less common. In areas where malaria is common, many people recognize the symptoms as malaria and treat themselves without visiting a doctor. Those without symptoms may be treated for infection to reduce the risk of disease transmission in the surrounding population. Artemisinin is derived from the plant Artemisia annua , better known as sweet wormwood.

It rapidly reduces the concentration of Plasmodium parasites in the bloodstream. Practitioners often combine ACT with a partner drug. ACT aims to reduce the number of parasites within the first 3 days of infection, while the partner drugs eliminate the rest. Expanding access to ACT treatment worldwide has helped reduce the impact of malaria, but the disease is becoming increasingly resistant to the effects of ACT.

The WHO has warned that no alternatives to artemisinin are likely to become available for several years. Research to develop safe and effective global vaccines for malaria is ongoing, with the licensing of one vaccine already having occurred in Europe. No vaccine is yet licensed in the U. Lavstsen believes the discovery will make it easier to understand the course of the malaria disease and what makes it so deadly. When this function is put out of action, we see the classic signs.

Therein lies the potential for understanding malaria and to start developing a vaccine against the disease. Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab. Proteins in the brain called water channels are shown to be important for surviving malaria. This may lead to entirely new medicines for a disease which takes hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

Europeans are three times more likely to develop cerebral malaria than Africans. Asia, Latin America, and parts of Europe are also affected by malaria. Every year, there are about , deaths from malaria worldwide.

Malaria is rare in the United States, and most of these cases are in travelers, military personnel, and immigrants. Malaria can affect people of all ages, but young children and pregnant women are more likely to develop severe illness.

Doctors suspect malaria based on a person's symptoms, physical findings, and where a person lives or has traveled. Doctors might take a blood sample to be checked under a microscope for malaria parasites, which are seen inside infected red blood cells.

In countries where the disease is seen a lot, doctors often treat people for malaria who have a fever with no obvious cause without getting lab tests to prove the person has malaria.

Malaria is treated with anti-malarial drugs given by mouth, by injection, or intravenously into the veins. Depending on the parasite causing the malaria, a person might be treated as an outpatient over a few days or in the hospital with IV medicine. Doctors also watch for signs of dehydration , convulsions, anemia , and other complications that can affect the brain, kidneys, or spleen. A patient may need fluids, blood transfusions, and help with breathing.