About Malaria
Facts about Malaria
- Every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria. It rivals HIV and tuberculosis as the world's most deadly infection and the vast majority of its victims are under five years old.
- Malaria infects around 400 million people every year and kills between one and three million, mostly children.
- 90% of the world's malaria cases occur in Africa, and 1 Million people on the continent die from the infection every year.
- Malaria outbreaks are now being reported in some African locations that had previously been thought to be at elevations too high for malaria transmission, such as the highlands of Kenya and – of all places – Nairobi.
- Malaria is an infectious disease transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. When an Anopheles mosquito bites an infected person, it takes a small amount of infected blood, and when it bites a non-infected person it injects the parasites into the new person’s blood system, which carries them to the liver. They parasites multiply within your red blood cells, causing the symptoms that include fever and headache. In severe cases the infected person may fall into a coma and die.
- The number of malaria cases in Africa has risen in the last 30 years due to
- Growing resistance of the parasites to medicine
- Growing resistance of the Anopheles mosquito to insecticides
- Climate change: Natural disasters, which turn many into refugees, expose millions more to mosquitoes.
- Lack of adequate healthcare, and lack of universal access to healthcare, due to the high cost and the distance from health care facilities.
Swiss Radio International special on malaria
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Facts about transmission
- Malaria cannot be carried via coughing, sneezing or touching
- Malaria cannot be carried from person to person. It is not a contagious disease
- Malaria can be carried via blood transfusion of infected blood, or via medical instruments that have not been properly sterilised.
