infections
Malaria
Introduction
Malaria is infection of red blood cells with one of five species of the protozoaPlasmodium. Malaria causes fever, chills, sweating, a general feeling of illness (malaise), and sometimes diarrhea, abdominal pain, respiratory distress, confusion, and seizures. Other findings include an enlarged spleen, anemia (due to the breakdown of infected red blood cells), and sometimes damage to the heart, brain, lungs, or kidneys. Usually, malaria is spread through the bite of an infected female mosquito. People have a shaking chill, followed by a fever, and may have a headache, body aches, and nausea and may feel tired. One type of malaria causes serious symptoms, such as delirium, confusion, seizures, coma, severe breathing problems, kidney failure, diarrhea, and sometimes death. Doctors diagnose the infection by identifying the protozoa (single-cell infectious organisms) in a sample of blood or by doing other blood tests, or both. Various antimalarial medications are used to treat and to prevent infection (which medication is used depends on the malaria species causing the infection, the likelihood of drug resistance in the area where the infection was acquired, and the medication's side effects and cost). Eliminating mosquito breeding areas, killing larvae in standing water, preventing mosquito bites, and taking preventive medications before traveling to affected areas can help prevent malaria. A malaria vaccine for children is available in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas with high transmission rates. (See also Overview of Parasitic Infections .) Malaria is a protozoa infection that is spread by the bite of an infected female mosquito. Although medications and insecticides have made malaria rare in the United States and in most high-resource countries, the disease remains common and deadly in many areas. In 2020, there were an estimated 241 million cases of malaria, with 95% of them in Africa (see2021 World Malaria Report). An estimated 627,000 people died from malaria in 2020, mostly children younger than 5 years. Since 2000, deaths due to malaria have decreased by about 30% through the efforts of theRBM (Roll Back Malaria) Partnership to End Malaria. Despite decades of decline, the number of deaths increased in 2020 as a result of disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, about 1500 cases of malaria are reported each year. Most occur in immigrants or visitors from tropical areas, or travelers returning from these areas. However, a few result from blood transfusions or from the bite of a local mosquito that had bitten an infected person. In some people, symptoms of malaria may not appear until months or years after the bite of an infected mosquito. 