Malaria Transmission

Finding out about malaria transmission is key to ascertaining just how to avoid the malaria disease. On this our malaria transmission page we will talk about exactly how the malaria disease is transmitted from the already infected malaria insect to a human leading to one of the four types of malaria infection and also how the insect became infected in the first place.

The malaria disease is what is known as a vector borne disease, this means that it is transmitted to humans or animals by an insect or other arthropod (an arthropod is an invertebrate animal that has an external skeleton, a segmented body and jointed appendages).

The malaria insect is a mosquito, another example of a vector borne disease is lyme disease which is spread by the bite of a tick. Humans and animals gain malaria infection when they are bitten by a malaria insect that is carrying the malaria parasite and is thus deemed as infected with the malaria disease. Just one bite is all it takes for malaria transmission to take place, one bite that causes over one million deaths each and every year.

Malaria Transmission Process

The female anopheles mosquito(the malaria insect) contracts the malaria infection by ingesting blood that contains the sexual forms of the malaria parasite plasmodium from an already infected human or animal.

Once the malaria parasite plasmodium has developed inside the mosquito it is then inoculated into the bloodstream of a human or animal when the mosquito bites them and this is the exact time of malaria transmission. Once the malaria parasite plasmodium has infiltrated the bloodstream of the victim it is transported to the liver where the first stage of malaria infection takes place, from the moment that the bite takes place this happens within just 30 minutes. The plasmodium parasites that have matured escape from the liver and back into the bloodstream where they infect red blood cells and subsequently multiply causing the red blood cells to burst and thus release the new multiplied parasites into the blood stream and back to the liver. This can happen immediatelty, however some parasites can lay in a dormant state for many months or even years before becoming active again. This cycle following the malaria transmission of the plasmodium parasite entering the blood stream happens several times. The result is the weakening of the immune system as the parasites attack the red blood cells that should be carrying oxygen around the body causing the onset of the symptoms of malaria.

Once the victim has become infected they can then spread the malaria disease when a mosquito bites them and the process starts all over again.

As you can see the malaria transmission process is very straight forward but what is more concerning is that it can be very quick. As soon as malaria infection has taken place with the red blood cells beginning to burst and the malaria parasite plasmodium multiplying the early symptoms of malaria will become apparent and the victim is on a slippery downward slope towards death unless treatment is received.

We have made it clear on our malaria treatment page that the best form of treatment is prevention, if you ensure that your exposure to mosquitoes in malaria hotspot countries is as minimal as possible then you are significantly reducing the chance of malaria transmission from any number of these mosquitoes that are infected with the malaria disease. If you haven't seen this page already we strongly suggest that you check it out in order to obtain some useful help in malaria prevention and also drugs to use to help stop you falling foul to malaria infection or to treat it should you be unfortunate enough to fall victim to malaria transmission.