Malaria

 

Photo by John Carroll
February 18, 2010

Malaria is caused by a parasite that infects the human red blood cell.

About 1 billion people in the world are infected with malaria each year and it kills 1-3 million of them.

Malaria is preventable and curable. And most malaria occurs in the developing world. Haiti has the most dangerous type of malaria...Plasmodium falciparum.

This 59 year old man came to clinic yesterday. He works as a security guard for a school.

He was moaning in "total body discomfort" and his skin was very hot. He had been sick for 5 days.

I could not find a source of infection and due to his symptoms I gave him a stat dose of choloroquine, started an IV, and admitted him to the hospital.

His malaria prep came back very positive for malaria. The ring shaped parasite inside his red blood cells were easy to see under the microscope.

This man has a ways to go, but by 9 PM last night his fever had dropped, and he was sitting on the edge of his bed conversing.