Malaria: Symptoms, Prevention, and Treatment Tips!

Malaria, a water Borne disease is a life-threatening disease spread by some types of infected female mosquitoes (Anopheles mosquitoes) to humans. However, blood transfusion and contaminated needles may also transmit malaria.

Symptoms of Malaria: Symptoms usually begin after 10-15 days of mosquito bite. Symptoms can vary from mild or even life-threatening. Mild symptoms include fever, chills and headache whereas severe symptoms include fatigue, seizures, confusion, dark or bloody urine, jaundice and difficulty in breathing.

How to prevent Malaria: Malaria can be prevented by avoiding mosquito bites and with medications. Timely treatment can stop mild cases from getting worse. Consult your doctor for taking medicine such as chemoprophylaxis before traveling to areas where malaria is common.

Wear clothes that cover as much of your body as possible, use mosquito nets while sleeping, use mosquito repellants (containing DEET, Icaridin or IR3535), use coils and vaporizers and use window screens at all times.

Treatment of Malaria: Multiple medicines are used to prevent and treat  malaria. Your doctor will choose for you based on:

• Type of malaria
• Whether a malaria parasite is resistant to a medicine
• The weight or age of the person infected with malaria
• Whether the person is pregnant.

Some most common medicines of Malaria are:

• Artemisinin:-based combination therapy medicines: Effective in treatment for P. falciparum malaria.
• Chloroquine: Effective in treatment of infection with the P. vivax parasite only in places where it is still sensitive to this medicine.
• Primaquine: Is added to the main treatment to prevent relapse of infection with the P. vivax and P. ovale parasites.

Most medicines used are in pill form. Some people may need to go to a hospital for certain injections.

source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria