malaria....

[KingTut]

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The other day I learned that malaria wasnt a virus after all, this whole time Iv been living on earth i always thought it was a virus and then in my zoology class we were lectured on it, and it turned out to be a parasite (plasmodium vivax,falciparum, malariae and ovale). Then i thought about it, since its a living being why cant researchers find something to kill it? I know im probably viewing it as something simple, but a living thing always has something thatll kill it...right?

 

[freyamaxine]

I thought that malaria was an apicomplexa (has an apical complex).

The Malaria plasmodium is thought to be a reduced protistan pirate. It has a relict plastid. This means that the malaria plasmodium can be treated as a plant.

Herbicides attack plants via their plastids and therefore don't affect animals. So ideally malaria can be treated with herbicides.

Of course more research is needed. We had a botanist who was involved in Malaria research come talk to our Biology lecture last year. Very fascinating 😀

 

[Habibti]

I was under the impression that there were treatments for malaria. However, the treatments are mostly successful in treating the blood form of the parasite.

Treatments
Most drugs used in treatment are active against the parasite forms in the blood (the form that causes disease) and include:

chloroquine
sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (Fansidar&#174😉
mefloquine (Lariam&#174😉
atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone&#174😉
quinine
doxycycline
artemisin derivatives (not licensed for use in the United States, but often found overseas)

The problem with malaria treatment, just like treatment of bacterial infections, is resistance so the malaria in certain geographic areas is resistant to certain drugs.

The other problem with malaria treatment is the malaria lifecycle Malaria lifecycle Some of the forms exist intracellularly in the liver. These are particularly a problem with P vivax and P ovale, which have dormant liver stages (and hence you can get relapses), although drugs now exist.

Some of the most successive anti-malaria campaigns have been aimed at prevention, rather than treatment, like eliminating the carrier or carrier habitat (anopheles) and using preventive medication.

 

[CalpardNY]

I know really very little about malaria specifically so this is going to be my non-scientific pov on this question.

I spent 3 weeks in Africa taking a course through my college. All the students took the preventative malarone or whatnot drugs. However, our two professors were Ghanaian (Sp? - from Ghana) and laughed at us every time we brought it up. Well on our last week there one of our professors felt sick and left the tour to go lie down in the hotel. Later on we found out that he actually had Malaria. We were all freaked out but hes like - oh don't worry about it. ill take some medication for 3 days and ill be good as new. He explained to us how Malaria there is sort of seen as like the flu. People get it all the time and as long as you catch it early enough you take some medication and you are better soon. Now we all thought this was the understatement of the year - but sure enough about 2 days later he was out on the boat scubadiving with us.

Now I don't know what kinda of medication he took, or its mechanism of action, and I'm sure people who live there have incidences of resistance (if they can get the drug at all) but I just found it interesting that at least in the areas where it is prevalent and unrealistic to use a preventative treatment, they do have treatment for it - something I was unaware of!