World Malaria Day: Together We Can Defeat Malaria, Zero Malaria Starts With Us!

Many have been defeated, many more may get defeated, Malaria is a malignancy that has severely affected the world. Malaria is a serious, sometimes fatal, disease spread by mosquitoes and caused by a parasite. The malaria parasite, Plasmodium is caused by the Anopheles mosquito where it’s life cycle begins. Plasmodium has different species each causing different symptoms and responding to different treatments. When you get beaten, the parasite travels to your liver where they mature till they enter your bloodstream and starts to affect your red blood cells. Within 48 to 72 hours, the parasites inside the red blood cells multiply, causing the infected cells to burst open. The parasites continue to infect red blood cells, resulting in symptoms that occur in cycles that last two to three days at a time. The symptoms of malaria both common and uncommon are: anaemia, bloody stools, coma, convulsions, chills, diarrhoea, headache, high fever, muscle pain, nausea, profuse sweating and vomiting. In other to avoid malaria you should do either one or two combinations of these solutions which includes: applying insect repellent to all exposed skin, cleaning gutters, covering most of the exposed skin and shoes that are closed can reduce the risk of bites, treating clothes with insecticides can prevent bites even further, keep all your environment/Surrounding clean at all time, sleeping under a mosquito net may help prevent being bitten by an infected mosquito, using bug sprays/insecticides containing DEET and many more. Photo Credit: Getty

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