General information about malaria
- Malaria is a disease common in tropical countries, a major cause leading to death in those areas
- Malaria is caused by a parasite called plasmodium, and it needs an intermediary that is an anopheles mosquito
- Elevated temperatures, yellowing of the body, and anemia from red blood cells are symptoms and signs of malaria.
- This disease is diagnosed by taking a picture of the patient’s blood.
- Prevention is better than cure and is done by avoiding mosquitoes and preventing it with drugs.
- Treatment of the disease includes two parts: treatment of symptoms, and treatment against the parasite.
- Misuse of antimalarial drugs increases the host’s resistance to these drugs, thus increasing the risk of disease and deaths.
Treatment of malaria
There are several treatments that may be used by a person suffering from malaria, due to the situation experienced by the patient, and we can divide the cases into three sections, namely:
- People with benign disease
- People with serious illness
- People with serious illness complications
In these cases there are some common treatments for the symptoms that appear, including: Paracetamol for high temperature, and blood transfusion in the case of severe anemia. It should be noted that the patient’s pressure and temperature, and the amount of urine output, and the level of sugar should be periodically, in addition to the numbers of parasites in the blood image, and the functions of the kidney and liver.
People with benign disease
Chloroquine is used as the first option to treat this type of disease. It is used as a three-day pill. In the case of plasmodium oval, the primary use is for 14 days after chloroquine.
People with serious illness
- Plasmodium falcipurum parasites do not respond to many of the drugs used as a treatment for malaria because of high drug resistance.
- Patients also use quinine or saline salt as pills taken in the mouth for 3-5 days, so that the patient’s condition improves, and the host disappears from the blood. This treatment is followed by three pills of vancedar, and if there is an allergy to this drug, doxacillin should be used for seven days
People with severe complications can take some of the prescribed drugs for a longer period of time, and only after consulting a doctor.
Alternatives to malaria treatment
- Atovacion with protoganyl is used for three days
- Artemether is used for five days, and after taking it on the patient to take two tablets of the manfloquin
- Ku artemether, artisnonite and amodocaine, which is the most widely used nowadays
- Oxford handbook of clinical medicine 8th edition
- Dvidson’s principles and practice of medicine 21st edition
- infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/malaria.html