Malaria

Term Paper Title	Malaria
# of Words	1084
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.34

Malaria

Malaria is regarded as one of the world's deadliest tropical parasitic diseases.  It claims more lives than any other communicable disease except tuberculosis.  In Africa and other developing countries, it also accounts for millions of dollars in medical costs.  Malaria, however, is a curable disease if promptly diagnosed and adequately treated.
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the parasite plasmodium.  In recent years, most cases in the U.S. have been in people who have acquired the disease after travelling to tropical and sub-tropical areas.  Over 200 million cases worldwide are reported each year.
Estimates of deaths caused by malaria exceed 1 million each year, with the majority being African children.  Other groups at risk include pregnant women, foreign travelers, refugees, and laborers entering endemic areas.  Malaria is prevalent in over 100 countries around the world, the most of which located in Africa and South America.

Predominance of Malaria
Today, malaria is a public health problem in more than 90 countries.  Worldwide prevalence of the disease is estimated to be over 200 million cases each year.  More than 90% of all malaria cases arise from sub-Saharan Africa.
The geographical area affected by malaria has shrunk considerably in the past 50 years. Yet measures to control this epidemic are becoming less and less effective.  Increased risk of the disease is linked with expansion projects in undeveloped areas, particularly in the Amazon basin and in Southeast Asia.
The rise of malaria is also linked to factors such as global warming, poor health services, political upheavals and armed conflicts.  Other causes of this spread include growing resistance of the parasites that cause the disease to new drugs.  And with the growing popularity international travel, malaria is now showing up in developed countries.  It is also re-emerging in areas where it has previously been under eradicated.

Symptoms
Symptoms of malaria vary depending on the specific type of parasite involved.  These symptoms include high fever, chills, sweats, vomiting, and headaches.   This would explain why malaria is often misdiagnosed as the flu.
In severe cases the illness can progress to lethargy, respiratory failure, coma and death.  If left untreated, the symptoms may persist for weeks or even months.  With some types of malaria, relapses may occur for years after treatment.
Malaria symptoms usually appear from 12 to 30 days after infection.  Some strains may not cause symptoms for 10 months or even longer.

Areas Stricken with the Disease
Malaria strikes poverty-stricken with the hardest blow.  Malaria prevalent areas include some of the world's poorest nations.  In Africa, medical costs and related expenses have been estimated at 1-5% gross domestic product.
Farming communities are particularly affected as well.  In rural areas, the rainy season is a time of intense agricultural activity, when poor families earn most of their income.  When malaria strikes at this time, these families are unable to make a living.

Malaria and Children
Malaria claims the life of a child every 30 seconds.  This disease has reached epidemic proportions in many regions of the world, and continues to grow unchecked.  Malaria kills 3,000 children under five years of age every day.  This rate exceeds the mortality toll from AIDS.
Young African are chronic victims of malaria, suffering an average of six bouts a year.  Too often, severely afflicted children die less than 72 hours after developing t...

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