A report on World Health Organization and Malaria

Malaria parasite connecting to a red blood cell

Alexey Yablokov (left) and Vassili Nesterenko (farthest right) protesting in front of the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in 2008.

The life cycle of malaria parasites. Sporozoites are introduced by a mosquito bite. They migrate to the liver, where they multiply into thousands of merozoites. The merozoites infect red blood cells and replicate, infecting more and more red blood cells. Some parasites form gametocytes, which are taken up by a mosquito, continuing the life cycle.

Demonstration on Chernobyl disaster day near WHO in Geneva

Micrograph of a placenta from a stillbirth due to maternal malaria. H&E stain. Red blood cells are anuclear; blue/black staining in bright red structures (red blood cells) indicate foreign nuclei from the parasites.

Three former directors of the Global Smallpox Eradication Programme read the news that smallpox had been globally eradicated, 1980

Electron micrograph of a Plasmodium falciparum-infected red blood cell (center), illustrating adhesion protein "knobs"

Countries by World Health Organization membership status

The blood film is the gold standard for malaria diagnosis.

Ring-forms and gametocytes of Plasmodium falciparum in human blood

An Anopheles stephensi mosquito shortly after obtaining blood from a human (the droplet of blood is expelled as a surplus). This mosquito is a vector of malaria, and mosquito control is an effective way of reducing its incidence.

Man spraying kerosene oil in standing water, Panama Canal Zone, 1912

Walls where indoor residual spraying of DDT has been applied. The mosquitoes remain on the wall until they fall down dead on the floor.

An advertisement for quinine as a malaria treatment from 1927.

Deaths due to malaria per million persons in 2012

Map of the WHO's regional offices and their respective operating regions.
Africa; HQ: Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo
Western Pacific; HQ: Manila, Philippines
Eastern Mediterranean; HQ: Cairo, Egypt
South East Asia; HQ: New Delhi, India
Europe; HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark
Americas; HQ: Washington, D.C., US

Past and current malaria prevalence in 2009

Ancient malaria oocysts preserved in Dominican amber

British doctor Ronald Ross received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria.

Chinese medical researcher Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2015 for her work on the antimalarial drug artemisinin.

Artemisia annua, source of the antimalarial drug artemisinin

U.S. Marines with malaria in a field hospital on Guadalcanal, October 1942

Members of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations collecting larvae on the Danube delta, 1929

1962 Pakistani postage stamp promoting malaria eradication program

Disability-adjusted life year for malaria per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004
no data
<10
0–100
100–500
500–1000
1000–1500
1500–2000
2000–2500
2500–2750
2750–3000
3000–3250
3250–3500
≥3500

Its current priorities include communicable diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, Ebola, COVID-19, malaria and tuberculosis; non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and cancer; healthy diet, nutrition, and food security; occupational health; and substance abuse.

- World Health Organization

In areas where malaria is common, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends clinicians suspect malaria in any person who reports having fevers, or who has a current temperature above 37.5 °C without any other obvious cause.

- Malaria

13 related topics with Alpha

Screened cup of malaria-infected mosquitoes which will infect a volunteer in a clinical trial

Malaria vaccine

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RTS,S recombinant protein viruslike particle

A malaria vaccine is a vaccine that is used to prevent malaria.

It is the first vaccine that meets the World Health Organization's (WHO) goal of a malaria vaccine with at least 75% efficacy.

RTS,S

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Recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine.

In October 2021, the vaccine was endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for "broad use" in children, making it the first malaria vaccine candidate, and first vaccine to address parasitic infection, to receive this recommendation.

Death

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Irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.

Statue of Death, personified as a human skeleton dressed in a shroud and clutching a scythe, from the Cathedral of Trier in Trier, Germany

Death tending to his flowers, in Kuoleman Puutarha, Hugo Simberg (1906)

World Health Organization estimated number of deaths per million persons in 2012

A flower, a skull and an hourglass stand for life, death and time in this 17th-century painting by Philippe de Champaigne

French – 16th-/17th-century ivory pendant, Monk and Death, recalling mortality and the certainty of death (Walters Art Museum)

Timeline of postmortem changes (stages of death).

Antoine Wiertz's painting of a man buried alive

American children smoking in 1910. Tobacco smoking caused an estimated 100 million deaths in the 20th century.

Le Suicidé by Édouard Manet depicts a man who has recently committed suicide via a firearm

An autopsy is portrayed in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, by Rembrandt

Technicians prepare a body for cryopreservation in 1985.

Kyösti Kallio (in the middle), the fourth President of the Republic of Finland, had a fatal heart attack a few seconds after this photograph was taken by Hugo Sundström on December 19, 1940 at Helsinki railway station in Helsinki, Finland.

The regent duke Charles (later king Charles IX of Sweden) insulting the corpse of Klaus Fleming. Albert Edelfelt, 1878

Dead bodies can be mummified either naturally, as this one from Guanajuato, or by intention, as those in ancient Egypt

All is Vanity by Charles Allan Gilbert is an example of a memento mori, intended to represent how life and death are intertwined

Santa Muerte, the personification of death in Mexican tradition

Earthworms are soil-dwelling detritivores

A dodo, the bird that became a byword in the English language for the extinction of a species

Illustration depicting Hindu beliefs about reincarnation

A yahrzeit candle lit in memory of a loved one on the anniversary of the death

Study of Skeletons, c. 1510, by Leonardo da Vinci

Malaria causes about 400–900M cases of fever and 1–3M deaths annually.

Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.

Mosquito net

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Type of meshed curtain that is circumferentially draped over a bed or a sleeping area, to offer the sleeper barrier protection against bites and stings from mosquitos, flies, and other pest insects, and thus against the diseases they may carry.

An Ethiopian mother with a long lasting insecticide-treated mosquito net.

Examples of such preventable insect-borne diseases include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, zika virus, Chagas disease and various forms of encephalitis, including the West Nile virus.

These nets can often be obtained for around $2.50–$3.50 (2–3 euros) from the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), and others.

Yellow fever

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Viral disease of typically short duration.

Adults of the yellow fever mosquito A. aegypti: The male is on the left, females are on the right. Only the female mosquito bites humans to transmit the disease.

The cover of a certificate that confirms the holder has been vaccinated against yellow fever

Information campaign for prevention of dengue and yellow fever in Paraguay

Areas with risk of yellow fever in Africa (2017)

Areas with risk of yellow fever in South America (2018)

Sugar curing house, 1762: Sugar pots and jars on sugar plantations served as breeding place for larvae of A. aegypti, the vector of yellow fever.

Headstones of people who died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 can be found in New Orleans' cemeteries

A page from Commodore James Biddle's list of the 76 dead (74 of yellow fever) aboard the USS Macedonian, dated 3 August 1822

Vaccination against yellow fever 10 days before entering this country/territory is required for travellers coming from...
All countries
Risk countries (including airport transfers)
Risk countries (excluding airport transfers)
No requirement (risk country)
No requirement (non-risk country)

In a differential diagnosis, infections with yellow fever must be distinguished from other feverish illnesses such as malaria.

The World Health Organization (WHO) now states that a single dose of vaccine is sufficient to confer lifelong immunity against yellow fever disease.

Scanning electron micrograph of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a species of pathogenic bacteria that cause tuberculosis

Disease

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Particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury.

This rash only affects one part of the body, so it is a localized disease.

Regular physical activity, such as riding a bicycle or walking, reduces the risk of lifestyle diseases.

Obesity was a status symbol in Renaissance culture: "The Tuscan General Alessandro del Borro", attributed to Andrea Sacchi, 1645. It is now generally regarded as a disease.

The most known and used classification of diseases is the World Health Organization's ICD.

When a disease is caused by a pathogenic organism (e.g., when malaria is caused by Plasmodium), one should not confuse the pathogen (the cause of the disease) with disease itself.

Antimalarial medication

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Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young children and pregnant women.

The World Health Organization recommendation for quinine is 20 mg/kg first times and 10 mg/kg every eight hours for five days where parasites are sensitive to quinine, combined with doxycycline, tetracycline or clindamycin.

Insecticide

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Insecticides are substances used to kill insects.

Farmer spraying an insecticide on a cashewnut tree in Tanzania

Biosynthesis of antifeedants by the action of myrosinase.

It has no observable acute toxicity in rats and is approved by World Health Organization (WHO) for use in drinking water cisterns to combat malaria.

A child with smallpox. In 1980, the World Health Organization announced the global eradication of smallpox. It is the only human disease to be eradicated worldwide.

Eradication of infectious diseases

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Reduction of an infectious disease's prevalence in the global host population to zero.

Boy with smallpox (1969). The last natural smallpox case was of Ali Maow Maalin, in Merca, Somalia, on 26 October 1977.

Rabies-free countries and territories as of 2018

There are four ongoing programs, targeting the human diseases poliomyelitis (polio), yaws, dracunculiasis (Guinea worm), and malaria.

In 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) passed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Infant mortality

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Death of young children under the age of 1.

Infant mortality rates are higher in countries with higher economic inequality

Countries by 2019 GDP (nominal) per capita.

Map of countries by fertility rate (2020), according to the Population Reference Bureau

1906 headline imploring parents to attend to the cleanliness of their infants, and to expose them to the "clean air" outdoors.

Data indicating the IMR disparity between infants Non-Hispanic black mothers and infants of white or Hispanic mothers in the United States from 2000 to 2010.

This 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld depicts the death of Bathsheba's first child with David, who lamented, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me"

Percentage of population suffering from hunger, World Food Programme, 2020.
< 2,5%
< 5,0%
5,0–14,9%
15,0–24,9%
25,0–34,9%
> 35,0%
No data

Other leading causes of infant mortality include birth asphyxia, pneumonia, congenital malformations, term birth complications such as abnormal presentation of the fetus umbilical cord prolapse, or prolonged labor, neonatal infection, diarrhea, malaria, measles and malnutrition.

Following the advent of the Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in the United States in the year 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports studies done in 2004 had shown a 57% decline invasive penicillin-resistant strains of diseases and a 59% reduction in multiple antibiotic resistant strains that could lead to mortality among infants.