Signs and symptoms of Malaria

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.

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.

Fever and headache

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:

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/clinicalfeature-140516075814-phpapp02/95/malaria-clinical-features-2-638.jpg?cb=1400227243

REFERENCES:

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/