Q&A: malaria

Q: What is the best treatment against malaria? Why combine drugs?

A: Malaria is caused by parasites. In most parts of the world, Plasmodium falciparum, the most lethal type of human malaria, has become resistant to conventional treatment. This is the use of a single drug (or monotherapy) of chloroquine, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, or another antimalarial medicine to fight malaria. WHO recommends that countries use a combination of antimalarial medicines to reduce the risk of drug resistance.

Q: Do all mosquitoes transmit malaria?

A: Only certain species of mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus—and only females of those species—can transmit malaria. Malaria is caused by a one-celled parasite called a plasmodium. Female Anopheles mosquitoes pick up the parasite from infected people when they bite to obtain blood needed to nurture their eggs. Inside the mosquito the parasites begin to reproduce. When the mosquito bites again, the parasites mix with its saliva and pass into the blood of the person being bitten.

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