Pathogenesis of Malaria: Biomedical Science Discussion Paper PDF

Running head: BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE
BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE
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BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE
Introduction
Malaria is and will remain to be a burden to a number of people, particularly, who are
residing in the poorly developed or a resource limited area like in rural areas or remote villages.
With the rising prevalence of malaria affecting people all over the world, the urgency to develop
new strategies to combat malaria also emerges1. Evidences prove that unless innovative
strategies are deployed, the already existing heavy health and economic burden in the tropical
countries are going to worsen. A single approach may not be sufficient enough to control the
emergence of this disease and thus, the use of a combined or a mixed intervention strategies can
be useful to combat malaria. The major barrier to control malaria is the development of their
drug resistant strains, thus, new strategies must be employed that will prevent the emergence, the
spread resistance to the drug and interrupting the transmission of the disease causing vector1.
Thus, this paper will talk about the combined approaches to control malaria in contrast to a
single method and why multiple methods are needed to be implemented to prevent the infectious
disease.
1 Tizifa, Tinashe A., Alinune N. Kabaghe, Robert S. McCann, Henk van den Berg, Michele Van
Vugt, and Kamija S. Phiri. "Prevention efforts for malaria." Current tropical medicine reports 5,
no. 1 (2018): 41-50.

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE
Discussion
Pathogenesis of malaria
Five single-celled eukaryotic plasmodium parasites are responsible for malaria.
particularly Plasmodium falciparum and plasmodium vivax that is usually spread by the bite of
Anopheles spp. mosquitoes. After a mosquito bites, the malarial sporoziots enter the hepatocytes
(liver cells) in which they replicate and emerge into the bloodstream as merozoites after a few
weeks. The infected liver cell ruptures by discharging the merozoites into the bloodstream2. This
is the place where they invade red blood cells and initiate the asexual reproductive stage, which
is a significant and symptomatic stage. Clinical manifestations start developing within 4-8 days
followed by the initial invasion of RBC. The replication cycle of the merozoites lasts about 26-
72 hours within the RBCs. Therefore, in this synchronous infection, fever occurs when the lysis
of the infected cells occur and those infected cells release endotoxins. Rupture of the infected
erythrocytes comprising the schizont resulting into fever and merozoite release. The
merozoitesthen enter the new red blood cells, and the whole process is repeated, causing
logarithmic upsurge in parasite burden3.
2 Mawson, Anthony R. "The pathogenesis of malaria: a new perspective." Pathogens and global
health 107, no. 3 (2013): 122-129.
3 Phillips, áM. "áA. etáal." Malaria. Nat Rev. Dis. Primers 3 (2017): 17050.