• Question: What are the symptoms a person feels if they have malaria?

    Asked by anon-256630 on 16 Jun 2020. This question was also asked by anon-256842.
    • Photo: Lucy McGowan

      Lucy McGowan answered on 16 Jun 2020:

      I had malaria, it was very unpleasant and the symptoms were fairly similar to bad flu. I experienced high fever which came and went every other day (this is a classic symptom of malaria). I also had aches in my bones and tiredness, dizziness, confusion and vomiting. That’s because the parasite infects the red blood cells in the body. Every 2-3 days (depending on the species of malaria you are infected with) the parasite bursts out of the blood cells to infect new cells. This damages the blood cells making you feel very tired and feverish and causes anaemia. The aching comes from the body trying to make new red blood cells to replace the damaged ones and making immune cells to fight the infection. The most severe symptoms of malaria can be caused by the inflammatory response to the parasite and when the damaged red blood cells block the blood vessels supplying vital organs. If this happens in the brain it can be very damaging. This is called cerebral malaria and it can result in seizures, organ failure and coma.

    • Photo: Alena Pance

      Alena Pance answered on 18 Jun 2020:

      Hi Claudia, there are 5 species of malaria parasites that infect humans and the effect of each one of them is different. In general, because they all infect red blood cells and the parasite destroys them as it multiplies, they all cause anemia, which means reduced red blood cell count in the blood and lower haemoglobin levels with the direct consequence of fatigue because of less effective oxygenation. As the immune system tries to fight the parasite, there are also fevers, shivers and headaches. But some of them (Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale) form hypnozoites, latent forms in the liver that cause liver damage and relapses of the infection. Plasmodium knowlesi has a multiplies much more rapidly in the blood so the symptoms appear much more quickly. The most wildey spread and aggressive parasite is Plasmodium falciparum that can cause severe malaria which is very strong anemia, organ failure, cerebral malaria, unconsciousness and death.

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