Malaria in Africa.

Below are some facts about malaria that I have recently been reading about in a book called "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey D. Sachs.

I thought I would give you some facts about malaria and why it is so bad in Africa.  Malaria is a potentially fatal protozoan disease transmitted by a certain type of mosquito, the genus anopheles.  Malaria is completely treatable, yet still claims up to 3 million lives each year, mostly young children, about 90% of whom live in Africa.  Malaria causes an estimated 5 billion (yes, billion not million) clinical cases per year.  Almost everyone that lives in tropical Africa contracts malaria at least once a year.  Low cost treatments exist but often do not reach the poor.

Many people just attribute malaria in Africa as something that is their fault or something that they could easily just get rid of, in reality it is a lot more complicated.  They have found that there is a two-way correlation between poverty and malaria.  In other words, malaria somewhat helps to cause poverty and in areas with poverty, it is easier for malaria to thrive.  But there is a lot more to it and Africa has a lot of things stacked up against them when it comes to malaria.

First of all, there are 4 types of human malaria.  Malaria caused by the pathogen Plasmodium falciparum is by far the most lethal and is responsible for most malaria cases in Africa.  Malaria caused by P. vivax is widely distributed outside of Africa and is far less lethal.  

Second, malaria is transmitted when a female anopheles mosquito bites a human that is already infected with malaria.  Once the mosquito ingests the parasite, it takes two weeks till the mosquito can pass on the disease, which is also roughly the life span of the mosquito itself.  Within those two weeks, the parasite goes into the mosquito's gut, undergoes a life-cycle transformation, and makes its way to the mosquito's salivary glands.  You may be asking what does this have to do with anything.  Well in warmer weather, which Africa has plenty of, this process is sped up making it easier for mosquitos to pass malaria from human to human.

Finally, some mosquitos prefer to bite humans and some mosquitos prefer to bite cattle.  This is a huge factor in the spread of malaria, seeing how malaria must consist of two human bites about two weeks apart.  Africa unfortunately has mosquitos that prefer humans nearly 100% of the time.  India, on the other hand, has mosquitos that prefer to bite humans only about a third of the time.  This means that mathematically, it is nine times easier for malaria to spread in Africa than it is in India just due to the difference of mosquito species.

With all that being said, there is still much that can be done about malaria in Africa.  It is not a hopeless situation.  Household spraying, bed nets, and antimalarial medicines can all be used to make leaps and bounds in the right direction.  The problem lies in the fact that African citizens don't have the money that would be needed to make all that happen.  With the proper funding and supplies, we could drastically reduce the amount of deaths caused by malaria in Africa.

I hope this has been informative and interesting to you all.