Status and Challenges of Malaria
Today, Malaria is considered as the most relevant and dangerous parasitic infection, which causes human diseases. This illness can be provoked by infection of more than four plasmodiums kinds like vivax plasmodium, falciparum, a plasmodium of malariae, and a plasmodium of ovale. Besides, beginning of malaria in some travelers even showed that compliance to medical recommendations can occur because of inability to eliminate exoerythrocytic stage of P ovale and P vivax, using only a stage of the blood course of schizonticide drugs. This challenge has recognized that antimalarial prevention is designated if influence is probable, but it is necessary to emphasize that prevention is never effective for 100%. It has to be complemented with a strategy of prevention of a mosquito (use of impregnated networks, screens, insecticide, repellent, corresponding clothes, etc). Doctors have to receive the travel history of their feverish patients in order to determine the right diagnosis. Fever of a person who went to the area of malaria has to be evaluated immediately, using appropriate diagnostic tests for malaria (Franco-Paredes & Santos-Preciado, 2006). However, malaria is a dangerous disease, but it can be prevented and treated with various methods. They will be discussed below.
Malaria is a serious illness, which causes fever and cold. It can be caused by a sting of an infected mosquito. Malaria is seldom found in the USA. Africa is the most frequent place for malaria as well as Central America, Southern Asia, and South America. Malaria results from a sting by a mosquito infected with parasites. People can rarely be infected with malaria if they have contact with infected blood. The developing germ can acquire the illness from a mother. People cannot catch malaria by simply being around someone who has the illness.
Malaria symptoms resemble symptoms of flu, such as fever, cold, and muscle pains. Signs usually come and leave in cycles. Some types of malaria can cause more serious problems like injury of heart, lungs, kidneys, or brain. These types can be deadly.
Prevention and Treatment of Malaria
Prevention of malaria among tourists and travelers is an obligatory step before going abroad, especially to Africa. The use of such medicine as antimalarial chemoprophylaxis is to be conducted carefully for risky travelers because of a risk of side effects.
Preventive efficiency of drugs for malaria is estimated by incidence of infections, which include antimalarial prevention or in certain cases extrapolation of their full value as a therapeutic choice. Bad commitment to chemoprophylaxis of malaria needs to be distinguished from resistance to medicine.
Though most travelers can avoid getting sick with malaria by taking these precautionary measures, cases of imported malaria are still frequent among North American, European, and Australian travelers. In some reports, travelers to malarious areas are likely to find health guides and less compliance to protective measures against insects and chemoprophylaxis (Franco-Paredes & Santos-Preciado, 2006).
Prevention of Stings
Because of night food habits of haematophagous of an anopheles, transfer of malaria happens between twilight and dawn. Travelers need to take protective measures to reduce contact with mosquitoes as the first line of protection. These measures include living in well-protected places and use of impregnated fibers. Non-DEET-containing structures provide only little amount of protection: 23 minutes with IR 3535, 95 of minutes of soy oil, and about 20 minutes with products containing tsitronella. Also, it is recommended to take flying insecticide against insects or the mosquito coil containing pyrethroids to help clear rooms of mosquitoes. The use of anti-mosquito grids offers approximately 50% of protection for travelers visiting risky areas, which has to be emphasized by health workers.
In most cases, malaria is spread in among vulnerable groups of the population in risky countries. However, there are also reported some imported malaria cases, possibly as a result of increasing travelling around the world. Plasmodium origins of human parasites historically include travelling. To show impact of travel on distribution of malaria, it has been recently shown that P vivax is received from parasites of a macaque infected from the hominid, which emigrated from Africa and colonized Southeast Asia (Franco-Paredes & Santos-Preciado, 2006).
Thus, travelling has promoted distribution of malaria. Now, acquired international cases of malaria possibly amount to 25,000 cases a year in developed countries. 10,000 of them are reported with about 150 fatal cases in a year.
Fast and precise malaria diagnosis is an integral part of proper treatment of victims and prevention of additional distribution of the infection in the society. The National Help Center of the Diagnosis of Malaria gives an opportunity to provide technical and diagnostic assistance with the malaria diagnosis. With the help of the CDC, microscopic diagnosis and drugs provide treatment of the disease. Besides, training and telediagnostics are promoted for treatment of malaria and other parasitic diseases.
Malaria treatment depends on many factors, which include a form of malarial parasites causing the infection, stage of malaria, and a part of the world where it has been caught. The last two features help define a probability of an organism being resistant to some malaria medicines. Additional factors like weight, pregnancy, and age can limit available tools for treatment of malaria (World Health Organization, 2008).
Generally, drugs are able to treat malaria. However, some malaria parasites can survive because they may reside in human liver or may be resistant to medicine. One has to receive medical care if he/she has been present in the malaria area, especially, if he/she has been exposed to mosquitoes. In case of having signs, which are familiar to flu symptoms like high temperature, muscle pains, and cold, one should turn for medical care at once.
People can be able to prevent malaria by taking treatment before, during, and after travelling to areas where malaria is present. However, the use of medicine to prevent malaria does not always work. It occurs partially because of parasites being resistant to some drugs in some parts of the world. Malaria causes twice more fatal cases than thought before, according to recent researches of the reputable Institute for Health of a Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a medical magazine based in Seattle and issued in Lancet. Additionally, 2010 was a year when the number of fatal cases was close to 1.3 million fatal cases. It was almost twice more than in the previous year (World Health Organization, 2008).
The question is how these figures could have been so different. There is an assumption that the majority of those who die of malaria are children. Actually, adults die too. During this year, malaria has caused about 210 million of clinical affections and about 600,000 deaths. Below is statistics for various years, which shows the probability of deaths in Haiti per year.
|
Country |
probability of malaria death (per 1,000 population) 1980 |
probability of malaria death (per 1,000 population) 1990 |
probability of malaria death (per 1,000 population) 2000 |
probability of malaria death (per 1,000 population) 2010 |
|
Haiti |
29.9 |
21.8 |
19.8 |
10.3 |
Control of Malaria
- A new strategy in prevention and control of malaria is emphasizing the IVM (the integrated vector management). This approach is able to strengthen relations between environment and health, optimizing benefits for the both.
- The integrated vector management is a dynamic and developing area. The IVM has been devised in order to treat the most wide-spread disease in the most profitable way. It is to minimize negative impacts on ecosystems, as well as avoid health side effects. Possible risks for health have been increasing in number because of a great impact of pesticides and bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals to vector resistance development with some usually used pharmaceutical preparations and pesticides (World Health Organization, 2008).
- Rather than relying on one vector control method, the IVM points out importance of the first local vector ecology understanding. Additionally, it emphasizes local models of transfer of the illness and corresponding tools of control from the range of possible parameters. These parameters include environmental control strategy, which can eliminate vector breeding with improved design or operation of water resources projects and the use of biological control. Its purpose is also to kill vector larvae without impacts of the chemical use on the environment.
Moreover, if other measures are ineffective or not profitable, the IVM helps with a reasonable use of chemical methods of vector control. They include internal dispersion of space and larvicides or residual splashes. These approaches reduce transfer of the illness.
Economic Costs of Malaria
In the analysis of economic development, there has been found out that countries with less intensive malaria have experienced higher growth rates of the GDP than countries with intensive malaria. Other analysis has shown that states that have 50% of the population living alongside the parasites have obtained income of one third of countries with less intensive rates. The illness connected with malaria, in turn, has a direct impact on economic productivity. In Côte d’Ivoire, diagnostics of farmers and patients with malaria takes more than two days during the period of vegetation. After this, it is estimated that they have 47% poorer harvests and 55% lower income. On the contrary, income of a farmer who has missed no more than two days of work is greater. In general, families that are seriously affected by diseases of different types can turn from cultivation of more valuable grain crops to crops that require a smaller amount of labor (World Health Organization, 2008).
Eradication of Malaria
It is stated that malaria can be fully eradicated, but, of course, nobody gives a 100% guarantee. Four stages are defined in terms of malaria elimination. They include fighting against the disease, preliminary elimination, elimination, and prevention. In 109 countries that suffer from malaria, there was a classification of how far they progressed in its elimination in 2008:
- Six countries are at the prevention stage, including Mauritius, Jamaica, Oman, Morocco, Russia, and Syria. These countries have no malaria. If they reach this result more than a year in a row, they will be certified as ‘without malaria’. Besides, separate territories in Indonesia, China, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, Sudan, Yemen, and Ethiopia are to be established as zones without malaria.
- Ten countries are now at the stage of elimination. Those countries are Algeria, El Salvador, etc. where 1.000 citizens include less than 1 case of malaria each year.
- Eleven countries are at the stage before elimination: Iran, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Tajikistan, Malaysia, etc. These countries obtain diagnostic tests, which show 5% of suspected malaria cases.
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Conclusion
Thus, prevention of malaria is to be conducted, especially for travelers to Africa. Africa, along with ten other countries that are at the stage of elimination, is considered as the most dangerous zone in terms of malaria. The use of such medicine as antimalarial chemoprophylaxis is to be carefully conducted because advantages of these drugs exist besides a risk of side effects. Preventive efficiency of drugs for malaria can vary. Inadequate commitment to chemoprophylaxis of malaria needs to be distinguished from resistance to medicine.
