Week Fifteen: Malaria

Common Name: Malaria

Scientific Name: Plasmodium vivax

Not-So-Fun Fact: The plasmodium protist is the organism responsible for the infection known as malaria. Once a human host is infected with the disease via a mosquito bite, he or she may experience symptoms for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, the vegetable extract quinine acts as a preventative medication against infection.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Protista

Phylum: Sporozoa

Class: Sporozoasida

Order: Eucoccidiorida

Family: Plasmodiidae

Genus: Plasmodium

Species: P. vivax

Environment: Plasmodium circulates throughout the body of a mosquito and is injected into a human host’s bloodstream by using the mosquito’s contaminated saliva as a vehicle. The protist inserts itself inside the host’s red blood cells and there wreaks havoc upon its host’s body. Malaria is most common in the tropics, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

Description: The Plasmodium vivax protist infects almost five hundred million people around the world and kills one million of its victims every year. The best defenses against catching malaria are sleeping under bed nets in areas at risk for the disease and taking quinine drugs regularly. Symptoms of malaria include fever, chills, fatigue, headache, sweating, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Reproduction & Development: A mosquito must be infected by male and female Plasmodia to continue the life cycle of its resident parasite. Inside the insect’s body, the Plasmodia sexually reproduce. Their offspring make their way to the saliva of their host and are carried into a human bloodstream, where they asexually reproduce via binary fission and spread throughout the body. From here they attempt to circulate around the superficial blood vessels until they are picked up by new mosquitoes, mate, and begin the life cycle again.

Nutrition: Like its fellow members of phylum Sporozoa, Plasmodium is a parasitic heterotroph, which means that it feeds off of the tissues and bodily fluids of its host to survive and cannot make its own food. Plasmodium cannot perform photosynthesis.