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Malaria

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Submitted By aluya009
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Author: Ali Gibril
Instructor: Mary Sue
Course: WRIT 1108-01
Date: November, 10 2013
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of human beings as well as other animals that is caused by parasitic protozoans belonging to the genus Plasmodium. This disease is prevalent in tropical as well as subtropical areas in a wide circle around the equator, including a large part of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
Even though the agent for P. falciparum malaria has existed for 50,000 to 100,000 years, the population of the parasite did not rise until approximately 10,000 years ago, at the same time with progresses in agriculture (Harper and Armelagos) together with the human settlements development. Human malaria parasites’ close relatives are still common in chimpanzees. A number of evidence proposes that the origin of P. falciparum malaria may be from gorillas (Prugnolle, Durand and Ollomo). The disease was previously referred to as marsh fever or ague because of its relationship with marshland and swamps (Reiter). Malaria was, at one time, common in the majority of North America and Europe, but it is no longer prevalent, although imported instances do take place (Webb).
Malaria used to be the most significant health hazard faced by U.S. military personnel in the South Pacific in the course of the Second World War, where approximately 500,000 men became infected (Bray), and 60,000 American troops lost their lives from malaria during the South Pacific and African campaigns (Byrne). Scientific research on malaria made its initial important progress in 1880, when Charles Alphonse, an army doctor from France in the Constantine military hospital, in Algeria, viewed parasites within the infected people’s red blood cells for the first time. He, thus, suggested that this organism was the cause of malaria, the first time that a protist was keyed out as

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