How much time does it take to cure malaria?

The world is celebrating world malaria day on 25 April 2017 and End Malaria for good is the theme for this year.But the end elimination or eradication of malaria is not insight or in the near future due to its wide spread tentacles.

Aspects associated with Malaria Treatment:

• Treatment of malaria depends on a number of factors like severity of the disease, whether it is complicated or uncomplicated type and species of plasmodium parasite infecting the patient.
• In general it takes about two week of  treatment to be cured of malaria.
• The disease should be treated early in its course before it becomes serious and life threatening.
• For this early detection and diagnosis is important. Patient may have typical symptoms of malaria like fever chills, sweating. But is many cases malaria may present is unusual ways with fatigue, diarrhea, muscle  pain, headache, vomiting, jaundice, low urine output along with seizures. Behavioural disorder ,features of shock, etc can also been seen in patients.
• After suspicion blood sample is taken and examined for presence of malaria parasite. Depending on its result malaria is treated.
• If the right drugs are used people who have malaria can be cured and all malaria parasite can be cleared from their body. However the disease can continue , if it is not treated properly .Some drugs are not effective, because the parasite is resistant to them.
• Some people may receive the correct drugs but right doses and duration is also important. Treatment with wrong dose on for too short duration leads to relapse resistance .
• Two types (species) of parasites Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovel have liver stages and can remain is the body for years without causing sickness. If not treated they can remain hidden in the liver and can be reactivated and cause malaria attacks.
• malariae can cause a long lasting, chronic injection that can last a life  time and which may cause Nephrotic syndrome (chronic kidney disease ).
• The more serious falciparum type is more easy to eliminate from body as it has no hidden forms.

Malaria can be fatal , if left untreated:  

If left untreated malaria can be fatal. The aim is to eliminate malaria parasite from blood. Even those who have no features of disease need to be treated to reduce the risk of disease transmission in the population at large. While talking of cure we must emphasize the role malaria prophylaxis. It means taking medicines when travelling to malaria endemic areas .Malaria should be  started one week before going to such areas  and should be continues to 4 weeks after return .It should be taken with advice of doctor. When patients are properly treated, they can usually complete recover completely. But severe malaria can progress extremely rapidly and cause death in hours or day. So, though malaria can be dangerous and deadly ,it is a highly treatable disease.

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