The Causes, Symptoms And Treatment Of Malaria

2. Treatment

Malaria can be fatal if left untreated. Treatment is designed to alleviate the parasitic infection from the bloodstream. Even patients who do not show signs or symptoms still need to be treated to reduce the risk of disease in the general population. Artemisinin-based combination therapy is the primary treatment used in uncomplicated malaria by combining the drug artemisinin with other drugs to reduce the number of parasites in the blood within the first three days. Researchers are working hard to develop a new method for treatment malaria as many strains are becoming resistant to artemisinin-based combination therapy.

1. Malaria Vaccination

In 2015, a malaria vaccine called RTS,S/AS01 completed phase three of testing. The only strain of malaria that the vaccine protects against is P. falciparum. Other forms of malaria including P. vivax are not covered. So far, the vaccine has been tested on five seventeen-month-old children and six twelve week old infants with malaria. Results showed that the vaccine was thirty-nine percent effective in the seventeen-month-old group and thirty-one percent effective in the infant group. Both groups were given four doses on a monthly schedule of zero, one, two, and twenty months.