So far i have managed to
define what malaria is, the major cause, epidemiology and how the disease is
diagnosed. In today's blog, my main focus will be on the signs and symptoms of
the disease and which one makes one go out looking for health care. Just like i
explained earlier, the experience is not worth looking forward to. When i had
the disease it was the worst experience to go through and considering i was in
a third world country where going to the hospital was by means of walking it was
my worst experience. That's the story for another day but let me start off by
explaining the very first sign when the bacterium starts affecting the body.
REFERENCES:
Chills
The first sign of malaria that shows is
shaking and a feeling of cold that makes one shiver. According to the CDC (2010),
this is normally called the cold stage which indicates that the incubation is
over and the bacterium is attacking the body system.
After the cold episode the
body reacts by having a high fever
which comes and goes every other day or few days. How often a fever returns
varies with each species of malaria. Many infections do not show this classic
pattern of returning fevers at all. The fever is usually caused by the
rupture of erythrocytic-stage schizonts (NCBID 1996) The fever and headache may also lead to nausea and vomiting. of all the symptoms that a person experiences, fever is the number one cause that makes one go to the hospital.
Sweating and weakness
This is when the body's temperature returns to
normal and causes the sweating. The patient may also feel weak; tired with some
muscle and joint aches which usually is the reason that makes many people feel
they are sick. For the places where there are no many mosquitoes these signs
may be confused with influenza.
The picture below shows the classical signs and symptoms in a summarized way:
The picture below shows the classical signs and symptoms in a summarized way:
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http://image.slidesharecdn.com/clinicalfeature-140516075814-phpapp02/95/malaria-clinical-features-2-638.jpg?cb=1400227243 |
Malaria disease. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2015, from
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/disease.html
Crutcher, J. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8584/
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