Mosquito! The carrier of the deadly parasite...
...A Cure for Malaria...
Mosquito! The carrier of the
deadly parasite...
Facts
about malaria:
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Caused by a deadly mosquito bite carrying tiny parasites that attack the red
blood cells, slowly killing the person.
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Millions of people die every year from malaria (700,000- 2.7 million)
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75% are African children, and one dies every 30 seconds.
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“Malaria” is Italian for “bad air.” Weird, since it’s not caused by
“air” rather an insect that flies in the air.
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Symptoms: Fever (over 40*C), chills, vomiting, headache, stomach ache…most of
the same symptoms of the flu or a severe cold…but it leads to death.
Beginnings:
The Spanish brought malaria to South America in the late 1500s and the bark of the Cinchona tree (a native remedy) was used to cure it. It was brought back to Europe in 1640, but it was not a popular until 1679, when it was used to cure two of the major figures in England and France. (See history for more).
Technically, Quinine is able to destroy the malaria parasite, or “Plasmodium” by bonding with blood proteins, and clogging up the space where the protein and glucose synthesis for the parasite occurs, thus forming complexes that kill it. Actually, quinine and other alkaloids do this to many other bacteria and one-celled organisms, like yeast and plasmodia. Anyways, in doing this, it drastically lowers the body temperature of the victim, often causing extreme chills for a few days. Afterwards, the fever peaks, sometimes at over 107*F. This is technically because so many new red blood cells are being formed and instantly destroyed by the struggling parasite. It is during this time when many of the victims die because the peak can get so high. Also, relapse is common because quinine cannot kill the parasites that live outside of the blood stream.
Historically,
quinine has been incredibly useful.
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The tropics (lots of mosquitoes…)
were easily colonized with mines and plantations because of quinine.
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Laborers
(from India and China) were easy to find for the colonization because of the
population surplus in Asia, due to a drop in deaths from malaria. Obviously,
this was because of quinine, the cure!
- The Panama Canal would not have been constructed without quinine, which was used along with DDT(insecticide) to control the outbreaks of malaria in the worksite.
The culprit in action...
Sadly, Quinine has been so useful that the destruction of the cinchona tree has led to rainforest devastation and ironically, global warming (the earth’s fever!). This has forced the mosquitoes to travel north, spreading malaria to North America. Pure quinine once again cures this, but like all medicines, it is becoming less and less effective. To date, it is only known to lower the fever and relieve some of the pressure felt because of the disease. Synthetic quinine as medicine is the only way to stop this raging cycle and actually end malaria. Some of the other types of drugs similar to quinine that are more widely used as a cure are chloroquine, mefloquinine, Paludrin, Maloprim, Fansidar, and Aralen.