Malaria Menace: Global Impact, Parasitic Perils, and High-Risk Populations

Introduction of malaria

In the recent years, there are more than 100 countries, where the people are suffering from malaria, which is an acute febrile illness and it is spread mainly across the tropical and sub tropical regions. Through the Plasmodium parasites, the diseases are spread, where the infected female Anopheles mosquitoes bite the people. The greatest threat of the major parasites is Plasmodium Vivax and Plasmodium Falciparum, which spread malaria among the people. Plasmodium Vivax is present outside of the sub Saharan Africa and it is the dominant malaria parasite. On the other hand, Plasmodium Falciparum is also prevalent malaria parasite, mainly in the African continent and it is serious parasite which raises the malaria related death rate across the globe. There are over one million deaths across the globe, which is due to malaria and there are the women and the children under the 5 years of age, who are at high risk, dying from the complications and impacts of severe malaria diseases (NCBI, 2009).

Clinical features of malaria

There are some major symptoms of malaria, which are,

Fever

Anorexia

Rigor

Chills

Headache

Thrombocytopenia

Abdominal discomfort

Diarrhoea

Vomiting

Muscle ache

Seizures

Respiratory distress

Hypoglycaemia

Coma associated with intracranial pressure,

Retinopathy

Metabolic acidosis

Cough

Severe anaemia

Additionally, clinical findings of the malaria disease are severe and there is high fever which also represents the cardinal features. Hereby, there are different impacts of malaria, from mild headache to severe chronic issues toward death (Mawson, 2013). Particularly falciparum malaria is dangerous as there is rapid growth of the complications and the malaria patient must get proper treatment and assessment instantly, where the health care staff and doctors and practitioners can diagnose the patients an there must be frequent observation, so that the patient can overcome the situation and the risk factors associated with malaria. There is high burden on the countries across the globe, where the government must take initiatives to protect the human being by providing healthy and safe environment to live (WHO, 2019).

Military personnel and prophylactic measures against malaria

In order to prevent the symptoms and side effect of malaria among the people across the globe, Malaria chemoprophylaxis is effective and it is considered to be a good anti-malarial medications. The travellers need chemoprophylaxis, where they are travelling across high risk Plasmodium falciparum endemic areas. Additionally, the military personnel are travelling across the globe and they face high threats of malaria disease as they travel across malaria prone areas. 14 day regimen of primaquine can be provided to prevent relapse, but there is lack of coordination and communication among the international countries which raise problems in managing international harmony for preventing malaria. The expert authorities groups agree that anti-malaria medications are required instantly to protect the travellers in the field of military, where they are suffering from high risk as they travel to the areas of chloroquine resistant (Bartoloni and Zammarchi, 2012).

In this regard, there is one effective anti-malaria drug, named Mefloquine, which is utilised in the military settings since 1980 by the USA military. There is increasing scrutiny and the media converge about the occurrence of applying the anti-malaria drug among the military personnel with significant neuropsychiatric adverse events. The major side effect of utilising Mefloquine is liver damage and it has been evident that, due to the drug toxicity, there is a decrease of the prescription of Mefloquine to the military personnel. As per the new research and model in drug toxicity, there is high requirement of prophylactic and radical cure activities, which can maintain the liver functions among the military personnel (Schlagenhauf, et al., 2010).