Malaria

Malaria has been recognized since the Greek and Roman civilizations over 2,000 years ago, with different patterns of fever described by the early Greeks. Malaria is the most important tropical disease known to man. It remains a significant problem in many tropical areas, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is spreading as a result of environmental changes, including global warming, civil disturbances, increasing travel and drug resistance. There are approximately 100 million cases of malaria worldwide with about 1 million of these proving fatal.

Plasmodium is a genus of protists. Infection with this genus is known as malaria. The parasite is spread by two host bodies: a mosquito (the vector) and a vertebrate. There are 200 known species of Plasmodium, only a few of them can infect people. Other types focus amongst others on birds, reptiles and rodents. Mosquitoes of the genus Culex, Anopheles, Culiceta, Mansonia and Aedes can act as a vector of Plasmodium. The vector of the variant harmful to people belongs to the genus Anopheles.

The organism was first discovered by Laveran on November 6, 1880 in a military hospital in Constantine, Algeria. Manson came in 1894 with the hypothesis that the Plasmodium could be transmitted by mosquitoes. This hypothesis was confirmed in 1898 with an experiment of the Italian professor Giovanni Battista Grassi and the British physician Ronald Ross. Ross got the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1902. The name Plasmodium was given in 1885 by Marchiafava and Celli.

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