Malaria Prophylaxis and Natural Selection

Malaria fever is probably one of the most popular ill healths that inflict humans populace in the tropics and all the parts of the world where malaria vectors are found and or where the disease is endemic. In Nigeria, malaria drugs are available over the counter and can be picked up by anyone. Ordinarily, the disease is supposed to be diagnosed through a variety of tests before drugs are prescribed, but many people with a high disposition to malaria, those with the AA blood genotype, already know and understand their malaria symptoms and hardly visit the hospital before opting for drugs. However, it is still advisable to visit the hospital and get diagnosed before resorting to taking the recommended drugs.

When it comes to malaria and drugs, people with AS blood genotype might really not have a lot of problems as they are kind of partially resistant to the malaria parasite. The reverse is the case, though, for those of us with AA genotype as malaria comes knocking approximately once in three to four months. Sometimes, it comes sooner than that for me, being as short as just a 4-weeks interval.

One of the ways to prevent malaria is to ensure that the malaria vector, the mosquito, is completely eliminated in one's environment. Another approach that has gained huge popularity is to always sleep under insecticide-treated mosquito nets. However, this prophylactic approach is not just enough to prevent the health challenge for those in the malaria-endemic areas. The only way the prophylaxis can completely prevent an individual from coming down with malaria is if they have never had malaria in their lives.

Mosquito nets for the prevention of malaria. By HMTents - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97185736

Once the malaria parasite gets into its host's system, it gradually multiplies at a rate that depends on the strength of the host's immune system. If the immune system is strong, the population of the parasite is kept at a level that will not elicit symptoms in the host. Once the host's immune system goes down, the parasite quickly multiplies and at a certain population level, starts eliciting malaria symptoms in the host due to activities relating to toxin production and destruction of red blood cells.

At this point, the host would have to resort to treatment in order to eliminate the parasite and mitigate the symptoms. Apart from the drugs for the treatment of malaria, a person suffering from malaria is also advised to rest and eat foods that can boost the immune system concurrently. By doing so, the malaria parasite is being attacked at all fronts - first, the drugs, and second by the host's immune system. Once the population of the parasite goes down to a minimal level, the symptoms disappear from the host and good health returns.

Coming down with malaria and getting a drug to treat it is one thing, the drug being effective in bringing down the population of the parasite is another thing. No, the drugs do not lose their efficacies. Rather, the malaria parasites evolve through natural selection.

Evolution of malaria parasites through natural selection

A patient suffering from malaria symptoms gets diagnosed and prescribed a drug. The drug works against the parasite by bringing its population level in the bloodstream of the patient to a minimal level and the immune system prevents the population size from exploding again once the effects of the drug have worn down. In other words, drugs hardly eliminate all the parasite's population because a few with natural resistance to the drug would survive.

The status quo remains until something happens and the patient's immune system drops. The few surviving parasites who have somehow hibernated in the bloodstream suddenly find their feet and start multiplying rapidly and eliciting malarial symptoms in the patient all over again. This time, if the same drug that was prescribed earlier is recommended again, it will not work against the parasite. Remember that the few that survived earlier have a natural resistance to the drug. This resistance would be passed to their offspring as well and their descendants now constitute the new populace.

This is a clear case of evolution by natural selection and one of the major headaches with those of us that usually come down with malaria every now and then. We sometimes have to buy up to 3 different malaria drugs before finally getting one that will work at a particular time.

The evolution of the malaria parasite is also one of the reasons using mosquito nets might do not guarantee that one would still not come down with malaria. Once you have the disease, the only guarantee that you will not come down with it again if you sleep under the mosquito net is if the drug you took completely eliminates the parasite from your bloodstream. In reality, it is highly improbable that a drug will completely eliminate all the members of the pathogen's population.

Hence, even if you are not bitten by the malaria vector, there is no guarantee that you will not come down with malaria again once you have got a history of the disease. This is one of the reasons most people living in malaria-endemic parts of the world usually take loads of malaria drugs with them when traveling to another part of the world where there are no malaria vectors and where the disease is not endemic.

Neem tree. One of the most popular trees for the production of herbal medicine in the treatment of malaria. By Ton Rulkens from Mozambique - neem treeUploaded by Jacopo Werther, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25016502

Herbs to the rescue

The evolution of the malaria parasite and its resistance to drugs has become a major problem. It may seem that the parasite is evolving at a faster pace than drugs can keep up. This is one of the reasons many are now resorting to herbs. Another reason is that people are tired of trial and error malaria drugs as these drugs do not come cheap.

There are a host of herbs and natural medicines that many resort to in the treatment of their malaria. Some of these herbs have been scientifically researched and proven to have the potentials to tackle the disease. In my future posts, I will be talking about the popular herbs for the treatment of malaria in the malaria-endemic ​parts of the world, including here in Nigeria.

Thank you all for reading my humble submission.


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Malaria is obviously no joke. If not we'll tackled, it's a dangerous disease to have.
I have the AS gene and getting the malaria symptoms is at most 2ce a year. I can't imagine having to combat malaria every month. 🤔
Evolution as you've mentioned is something that is always bound to happen. Living things get to adapt to situations and may build immunity against certain things. This is actually the reason I try to do without drugs and let my body fight for itself. That way, it can build immunity if the case isn't a serious one.
I hope one day, malaria would be only in history books.

PS I got to your post from @dreemport


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I also sometimes feel like leaving malaria to run its course and hoping that my immune system will win the fight. However, I got to understand that complicated malaria is no joke. I once saw a post here on hive of a laboratory analysis showing that someone's blood sample was had a malaria parasite population of 60%. I mean, that person is a living dead.

In other words, it is better to just treat your malaria once they come. waiting for your body to fight it naturally might lead to a more complicated health situation.

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Assuming you are talking about my post, the patient did survive.

Can't say the same for the permanent damage and after effects. I do not have access to such privileged info.

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You are right, I was talking about your post. I was not sure of the handle, I could have tagged you. I did say then that the patient might survive it but will definitely require blood transfusion as part of the treatment. Thanks for reading in between the lines

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Totally. She went through several units of blood products if I recall, which made it even more challenging as she needed the drugs to stay in her system.

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I can imagine what it's like. Probably her first time of contracting the parasite

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I have never had malaria, but have been to places where it was always a concern. Not sure I would ever want to go through it or know someone who experienced it.

Very good of you to share this information and some herbal remedies.

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Having malaria is still a bit safer for those in malaria-endemic areas as their body system already knows the parasite and might have been building inherent immunity. People who did not grow up in the endemic areas are more likely to get serious complications or even death from it.

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Oh yes, which is why it was always a concern for me. I never grew up around it. I never had malaria, but I did spend a great deal of time, when overseas, with my pants around my ankles squatting over a log, and if lucky a toilet.

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That sounds like some adventures :). Lucky you!

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Quite insightful. I'm knowing for the first time how malaria parasite evolve in the blood stream.

It sounds as though it's difficult to completely trash out malaria parasite from the body after it might have gain access into the bloodsstream.

I came here through @dreempo


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