Malaria Disease, The Life Cycle, Causes & Control Measures

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Malaria is one of the stubborn diseases. In the tropics here most people do not take it seriously about how this disease can cause death since they have not taken their time to study how the living parasite in the human body can be injurious to our immune system.

I for instance I've been a victim of this disease haven develop in my body system that I didn't take precautionary measures to cure it. It got to a point that I was weakened since the disease kept inside me for very long time.

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Licensed image of life cycle of mosquito


"Causes of Malaria disease"

Malaria is caused by the vector known as Anopheles mosquito ( The carrier of the plasmodium parasite). A vector is said to be a living organism which carry a disease causing organism but do not cause the actual disease. When the Anopheles mosquito bites and infected person with the malaria, it contract the the plasmodium parasites within its body system. As the Anopheles mosquito carries the plasmodium parasite, it can transmit to a healthy person through biting and injecting the plasmodium parasites.

The spread of malaria disease

What makes to malaria disease become dangerous is how it can spread quickly through their breeding. We can attribute this to human activities such as leaving water in empty cans and lorry tyres, choke gutters, bushes around our environment, ditches, pools and littering around. All these activities can help mosquito to breed and survive on the environment as they feed, grow and reproduces.

The stages of the life cycle of mosquitoes

Knowing the morphology of the mosquito life cycle is very vital to the Scientist so that we can prevent their cycle of breeding on their environment. The life cycle of mosquito begins from the Adult. The adult lays eggs in ditches, empty cans, tyres and coconuts. Stagnant water, chokes gutters, pools and bushes can also serve as breeding grounds. The eggs are mostly laid on the surface of water. The eggs are hatched into larvae within 48 hours. The larvae then feed with micro-organism and some organic matter while in the water. The larvae undergo molten stage about 4 times shedding off it skin in order to grow. The larvae then become pupa on the 4th molts. The pupation ( process of larvae turning into pupa) stage is where most internal organs and other structures emerge and develop. The internal organ like the ileum liver and pancreas emerge. The sensitive part of the mosquito known as Antennae which is used for detection emerge, the 3 segmented legs appear. The proboscis ( strong long mouth part of mosquito) appear. The proboscis of the females are very stronger for suckling of blood. The compound eyes and the wings emerge

During pupation, the the mosquito remain dormant without feeding. This is done in order to prevent itself from any injury. A lot of metamorphosis takes place for the mosquito to grow into adult. The mosquito wings become very wet so it has to come out from the water for the wings to dry. After the wings has been dried, the Adult mosquito flies away.

Mosquito control measures

It has become very impressive to destroy the cycles from breeding. In that case, the mosquito wouldn't get some places to lay their eggs.

The various methods use to control the life cycle of mosquitoes are:

1• Environmental method: This method comprises of distilling all choked gutters, old empty tyres, empty cans and coconuts so that it can break their cycle of further growing into adult. Weeding of around the community and neighboring houses which are likely to be breeding grounds. All stagnant water or pools should be drained if not in use.

2• The chemical control method. It has been effective for controlling the adult stage of mosquitoes. Examples are spraying the breeding area of mosquitoes. Using insecticide mosquito spray.

3• Biological control. This isn't common in most places like the tropics. Under this method, predator animals like guppies are introduced to pond or pools which contain mosquito larvae. The guppies eat up all the larvae so that the cycle is broken for further growth into adult. This method is very effective of controlling the larvae stage of mosquitoes.

4• Genetic method of controlling mosquito. This method is very popular in the advanced country. The male mosquito is sterilized with some injection of chemical so that they become infertile to fertilize the female mosquito. The female mosquito therefore can't reproduce and hence the population of mosquitoes would be reduced.


We all have the responsibilities to control the mosquito population. In some advanced countries, the mosquito is sprayed periodically with Helicopter. This has helped to reduce the population of mosquitoes. Haven studied the mosquito control measures would help us to adopt the living styles where all the mosquito control measures are applied. This will go a long way to reduce the spread of malaria among humans.

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