Malaria Life Cycle

Also called

malaria · Plasmodium · Plasmodium vivax · Plasmodium falciparum · malarial parasite · Anopheles mosquito · female Anopheles · sporozoite · merozoite · gametocyte · oocyst · haemozoin · vector · mosquito net · Gambusia · मलेरिया · मच्छर · प्लाज्मोडियम

Topics

• Malaria is caused by the protozoan Plasmodium: P. vivax, P. malariae and P. falciparum, the most serious.
• An infected female Anopheles mosquito injects sporozoites, the infective stage, into the blood as it bites.
• Sporozoites reach the liver and multiply asexually inside liver cells, which burst to release merozoites.
• Merozoites enter red blood cells, multiply and burst them together, releasing a toxic substance, haemozoin.
• Haemozoin causes the chills and high fever of malaria, recurring every three to four days.
• Some merozoites become male and female gametocytes in red cells; a mosquito takes them up when it feeds.
• In the mosquito gut gametes fuse; the zygote forms an oocyst whose sporozoites move to the salivary glands.
• Plasmodium needs two hosts: it multiplies asexually in humans and reproduces sexually in the mosquito.
• Nets and repellents stop bites, drugs kill the parasite, and Gambusia fish or drained water stop the larvae.

About this model

A GLB file of about 755 KB, shown in Lably's 3D viewer and, on a phone, placed in your room with AR. Credit: Model, science and animation: Lably (built procedurally with three.js; no downloaded meshes). | CC BY 4.0. Original geometry and animation made for Lably.

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