ABSTRACT
Malaria is one of the world’s most dangerous and widespread parasitic diseases. Its name comes from the ancient concept of the mal aria or ‘bad air,’ which was believed to cause disease in damp, lowlying areas. It is caused by parasites transmitted by the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. More than half the population of the world is estimated to live in areas where malaria transmission occurs to some degree.1 The majority of cases occur in tropical Africa, but they also occur in parts of Asia and Latin America. It is especially common in poor, deprived and undeveloped regions, where it has an enormous effect on public health. According to the World Health Organization in 2005, 107 countries and territories – with a combined population of 3.2 billion people – have areas at risk of malaria transmission within them. World-wide, between 350 and 500 million people suffer from the disease each year, often severely.2 Malaria kills between 1.5 and 2.7 million people annually, and over a
million of these deaths are in children below the age of 5 years although they also include many older children, pregnant women and non-immune travelers.1 Although there are four types of human malaria (Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium falciparum), most cases of malaria are caused by the P. falciparum and P. vivax parasites, and falciparum malaria alone causes about 1 million deaths annually.2 Overall, malaria is responsible for 10-30 per cent of all hospital admissions worldwide.3 Furthermore, it is often associated with several other conditions, such as malnutrition, respiratory infections, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or tuberculosis.
