Malaria is a disease caused by parasites carried by the female anopheles mosquito. The parasite is picked up by the insect by biting someone who already has the disease. It is then passed to other people through the bites of the infected mosquitoes.
Rarely, it can pass from person to person in the case of congenital malaria or through blood transfusion, organ donation or shared needles.
Early symptoms can include irritability and drowsiness, with poor appetite and trouble sleeping. These symptoms are normally followed by chills and then a fever with fast breathing. Then as the fever ends and the child’s body temperature quickly returns to normal, there is an intense episode of sweating.
Other symptoms may include headache, nausea, pains and aches all over the body and an abnormally large spleen. If malaria affects the brain, the child might have seizures or loss of consciousness. The kidneys may also be affected in some rare cases.
A little peep into Congenital malaria…
Congenital malaria occuring as a result of transmission of parasites from mother to child during pregnancy or perinatally during labour is a rare clinical condition. It occurs as a consequence of clinical attacks of malaria during pregnancy but also detected rarely in infants of asymptomatic women ( women without no symptoms), where the diagnosis maybe missed both in the mother and child.
In other words, if a mom to be has malaria during pregnancy, it can be passed to her unborn baby either before or during pregnancy. The baby is less likely to get malaria in the first 3months of life because of the immunity conferred during pregnancy but as the baby grows older, that immunity is lost and the risk of getting malaria increases. The baby is also more likely to develop severe malaria as the immunity is not yet fully developed.
As a pregnant woman, it is advisable to always go for your routine check-ups to be able to detect this disease early and get treated promptly.
On our next post, we would be talking on how to treat paediatric malaria and what to do during this period…
Dr. Favvy
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