Obaba Museum

The word malaria often triggers mixed emotions and reactions. Many Africans are quite familiar with it, and most of them even self medicate in a bid to combat this deadly disease. There’s a very high chance you’ve also gotten drugs to treat it without prescription. As simple as it appears, malaria has killed more people than all the great wars ever fought on earth. Of course, the vector of this deadly disease is the tiny mosquito just like you thought.

Malaria is a serious disease caused by its parasite (Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae). You contract it when an infected mosquito bites you. It is a major cause of global deaths and a serious problem in most developing countries with warm climates, especially within Africa and Latin America. If you live in or travel to these countries, you are at risk of contracting the disease if you don’t have the knowledge needed to prevent or treat it. There are four different types of malaria caused by four related parasites. The most deadly type occurs in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.

Malaria symptoms include: chills, flu-like symptoms, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and jaundice. It can be life-threatening, however, a blood test could give you a correct diagnosis. The type of drug administered for treatment often depends on the kind of malaria you have and where you were infected.

Malaria can be prevented with following the tips:

• See your doctor for medicines that protect you.
• Wear insect repellent.
• Cover up.
• Sleep under mosquito nets.
• Eradicate stagnant water by clearing up your drainage.
• Pour insecticide on breeding spaces like dirty stagnant water or drainages to kill mosquito in it larvae and pupa stage.
• Spray insecticide in your homes to kill them or use mosquito coils wisely (beware of asthmatic patients).

There are wide variety of drugs that can cure malaria ranging from:

• Chloroquine phosphate
• ACT Arthemeter and lumenfantrine
• Sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine

All these drugs are in various forms, dosage per age, brand names, and prices. We have them as injections too.

Do well to take care of yourself: eat well, exercise, and prevent mosquito bites as much as possible. Prevention, they say, is better and cheaper than cure.

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