Plasmodium falciparum is one of several microscopic protozoan parasites that cause the disease commonly known as malaria. Every year, millions of people still are infected with P. falciparum parasites and suffer the symptoms of malaria.
Geography
Long before records were kept, humans had to deal with Plasmodium falciparum and its cousins; the parasite flourished in warm, tropical or semi-tropical environments. Transmitted by mosquito bites, P. falciparum can spread quickly among populations, wiping out their hosts weeks, months or even years later. in response to this threat, some people in Africa developed a genetic anomaly that imparts resistance to malaria at the cost of painful symptoms: Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disease that deforms red blood cells, causing the cells to be banana-shaped rather than disk-shaped. The different shape is more resistant to P. falciparum infection, and thus confers some immunity to the disease.
Ancient Response
Ancient Egyptians and Romans understood the dangers of malaria--though they were not aware of Plasmodium falciparum--and came to the conclusion that draining swamps and pools of stagnant water reduced the prevalence of illness in nearby communities. For example, Roman engineers drained several swamps around Rome in the early years of the Republic. The result was an explosion in Rome's population and a significant reduction in the malaria's manifestations. Similar efforts in India, China and Mesopotamia resulted in decreased exposure to P. falciparum.
Naming
In 1880, Charles L. Laveran, a French physician working in a military hospital in Algeria, examined a smear of blood taken from a soldier who had died from Malaria. While looking through a microscope, he discovered small, sickle-shaped protozoans and named the small "bugs" "falciparum," a Greek composite word meaning "sickle-shaped multiple births." Though it remained a mystery how the protozoa got inside a human body, Laveran hypothesized that it might have been transmitted by mosquitoes.
Transmission
Laveran's "transmission by mosquitoes" theory was put to the test in 1898 by Giovanni Grassi and Ronald Ross. Grassi and Ross captured and identified a variety of mosquitoes around Rome, dissecting them under microscopes. They were able to prove conclusively that a certain type of mosquito, the "Anopheles," was a carrier of the Plasmodium falciparum protozoa. These test results were confirmed in the examination of other mosquitoes caught in other malarial areas around the Mediterranean.
Prevention/Treatment
Because it is impossible to wipe out the Anopheles mosquito, let alone the Plasmodium falciparum protozoa, scientists and physicians have proposed a series of prevention and treatment regimens to reduce fatalities from P. falciparum.
Before visiting an area where P. falciparum may be present, an anti-malarial preventative drug is prescribed. The patient must take the medication before, during and after visiting the area. People can also help ward off infection by using insect repellent and, where practical, sleeping inside a mosquito net.
Quinine-based drugs are given intravenously to combat the protozoa in case of infection.
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