Malaria is a disease that infects both humans and animals that is mosquito borne and spread. Every year, between 660,000 and 1.2 million people die from the pandemic and many of these deaths occur in poor places near the equator. As of 2012, nearly 3.3 billion people are at risk of infection or death from malaria.
Malaria is a virus that attacks the liver and red blood cells of the human body, slowly reducing the capabilities of the curculatory system and immune system. A simple cold or just worsening Malaria can then finish off the victim eaisily.
Malaria has been around for thousands of years, but the reason it is still rampant and causing death and debilitation is because there is not an available vaccine. This is because there are certain characteristics of the malaria virus that mean it evolves to what vaccines the scientists develop. In essence, we would have to develop a super vaccine to counter all the variations in the bug. Though we can cure malaria in most cases, we have trouble getting the cures to the poorest places where they are needed most so a vaccine is the only long term soloution we have.
Malaria also has large economic and social implications on everything from a local to a global scale. A large and sudden outbreak can cripple a nation's workforce and destroy the way of life. It also is an issue because of the people it targets. Malaria attacks children and pregnant women and sometimes the elderly, but interestingly almost a third of all Malaria related deaths were in healthy adults.
Another problem with Malaria is the way it travels from person to person. By using the mosquito as a transport mechanism it is ongoing untill we wipe out the infected mosquitos. Though incecticides and netting have reduced child mortality by 20% (further indicaion how huge it was before) in most african countries but much more needs to be done before we can ever dismiss Malaria as the past.
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