Malaria General Information

Malaria clinical cases number 300-500 million annually worldwide, with several million deaths; in essence several thousand deaths are due to malaria each day. Children, pregnant women, and non-immune adults are most vulnerable to severe disease, which can result in hyper-parasitemia, anemia, thrombocytopenia, organ failure, and coma. In non-immune individuals, death can pursue in as little as 24 hours after symptoms occur. Understanding this disease and developing a vaccine for malaria poses unique scientific challenges. Four species of the parasitic organism called Plasmodium are transmitted to humans by about 60 species of Anopheles mosquitoes. The two most predominant Plasmodium species that infect humans are Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, and both of these species are studied by EVC scientists. The parasite is very complex, with over 5,000 genes; and several stage-specific proteins. The malaria parasite transforms itself several times during its life-span. It first develops in the mosquito midgut as long slender sporozoite forms that then reside in the salivary glands and are transmitted during the blood meal (i.e. when the mosquito bites). The parasites readily infect parenchymal liver cells; then thousands of newly differentiated more rounded forms called merozoites develop and rupture from the liver cells and invade red blood cells. The parasites multiply within and burst from red blood cells in a cyclical fashion, ready to invade new red blood cells. Some parasites alternatively develop in the blood into sexual forms called gametocytes, which can be picked up by feeding mosquitoes and serve to continue the infectious cycle.

For more information on the parasite, the disease and current global programs to research and control malaria see:

Malaria Foundation International