Malaria starts with the bite – specifically, of a female Anopheles mosquito carrying the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. With a spray of saliva, meant to moisten the area from which she will drink, she unknowingly injects roughly a dozen one-celled parasites. These eel-like creatures slip into the bloodstream, and immediately swim amidst its red blood cells, in search of their sole target: the liver. Once there, a parasite will pick a single liver cell and burrow its way inside, and, unnoticed by the victim, begin its process of replication. Over the next week, each parasite will replicate more than 20,000 times; therefore, if as many as 12 parasites enter the body, the Plasmodium will reach a count of nearly one-quarter of a million only in this first stage. When the unlucky liver cell is too strained from its inhabitant’s replication, it bursts and lets loose its many parasites into the bloodstream once again. The eager immune system hurries in an effort to kill off as many parasites as possible, but the parasites, in turn, find refuge by entering the red blood cells. However, they also find food here; hemoglobin is vital to these parasites’ diet. With a newfound strength, the parasite once again multiplies in the confines of its RBC, and in doing so causes the red blood cell to burst and release an even larger army of Plasmodium. RBCs are steadily overtaken by the sheer numbers of the parasite, and at this stage of takeover, white blood cells are useless. At this point in the attack, as millions of parasites have been produced and run rampant, the victim recognizes that something is wrong. Soon enough the body will slip into shock and fever as the immune system works its hardest.
This is a description of the deadliest form of malaria – plasmodium falciparum, otherwise known as cerebral malaria, in which red blood cells become sticky and malfunctioning. This type launches the quickest and most fatal attack. It can also cause severe damage to the brain and the rest of the central nervous system. Plasmodium vivax and plasmodium ovale can, in most cases, not be detected in the body until just under two years after the infection is launched. The fourth type of Malaria is by far the rarest, plasmodium malariae, can survive dormant and nearly undetected in the human body for as long as 30 years.
The parasite itself develops in the Anopheles gut, salivary glands, and intestines.
