Those with blood genotype AS might never really understand what most of us with AA blood genotype go through in the hand of malaria parasites. Nature has a way of compensating heterozygous breeds (or shall we call it hybrid vigor?), after all. Interestingly though, not all AA folks have to battle malaria fever every three to four months. Unfortunately for me, I happen to be among the latter.
If a million and one symptoms are lined up and I am asked to identify my own malarial symptoms among them, I will do so with my eyes closed. For the past 2 years or so, there seems to be a perfect correlation between time and me coming down with malaria. It is almost every 4 months. The last time I came down with one, I wrote a post about it here
For the past 5 days or so, I have been having my peculiar and characteristic symptoms of the disease, including:
- Flu
- Joint pain
- Fever
- Pain in the eyeballs
Each time I get these symptoms and I go for a diagnostic test, malaria comes out as the diagnosis 100% of the time. Hence, I do not bother to go to the hospital or diagnostic laboratory anymore whenever these symptoms come up. Since malaria drugs are available over the counter, I just walk into the nearest drugstore or pharmacy and pick up the relevant drugs.
Coming down with malaria is not something that used to be my thing in the past, until in recent years. In actual fact, I know many people whose blood genotype is AA but do not come down with malaria as regularly as I do, even though an interval of 3 to 4 months between malaria episodes seems to be normal. I have just been wondering why my immune system is not as strong as those that rarely come down with the disease. I suspect it could be because I rush to take drugs once the symptoms start showing up. How about giving it a little more time perhaps the immune system will take charge?
Generally speaking, it is known that both the innate and adaptive immune response is involved as far as the pathogenesis of diseases is concerned. Malaria is not left out in this regard. The immune system of someone infected with malaria parasites elicits some responses and according to studies, some of these responses can determine the next malaria episode in the host.
According to Schofield and Grau (2005), it is possible to acquire immunity to malaria, especially in those that live in places where the disease is endemic and have no genetic resistance, like the AS individuals. The immunity can happen at 3 levels:
- immunity to the disease itself
- immunity to the symptoms elicited by infection with malaria parasites
- immunity that prevents the parasite from multiplying beyond a threshold level that will elicit symptoms
In order to develop any of these immunities, an individual must have had multiple episodes of the disease so much so that the immune system gets too familiar and automatically braces up the next time. There are no published works showing clear evidence of how the immune system is able to achieve this feat but a few reports have it that the cytophilic antibodies and the memory cells produced during the various episodes of malaria are responsible. Although, I strongly feel a major breakthrough must have been made in this regard following the announcement that a malarial vaccine has been successfully developed.
Between immunity and complications
Since research has shown that it is possible to be immune to malaria in such a way that one might either not show symptoms at all or at a level that will not require drugs or any form of treatment, I have been thinking of how safe it might be for one to wait a bit before deciding to treat their malaria.
In other words, if one hesitates from treating their malaria, they might be lucky enough for the symptoms to go away without having to take any drug on one hand, and they risk getting stronger symptoms or more complicated situations on the other hand.
Many people have died and will probably continue to die from malarial complications. Globally, an estimate of two million people dies from malaria-related complications yearly. Complications from malaria are known to vary depending on severity. They include but are not limited to cerebral malaria, pulmonary edema, acute renal failure, severe anemia, and/or bleeding.
Final Words
Since malaria infection has become almost every 3 to 4 months occurrence in my body, I have decided not to rush to take drugs once the symptoms start presenting themselves because the potentials to develop immunity are there according to research. I do not wait for the symptoms to become too strong, however, so that I do not risk getting malaria-related complications from which millions die annually.
Thank you for your time.
God have mercy on me.... I have no idea what my genotype is🤦
I have to go find out soon before I get into trouble with malaria
What is my own malaria story?
Initially, I was always down with malaria or the peculiar symptoms (flu, pains, and fever) faster than four months as you
Then I began to track how often I get exposed to anything that brings malaria to my body's doorstep. One of the enemy was mosquito
I live in a place where we are exposed to mosquito bites every now and then. So I took the precautions of always shutting my doors in the evenings right before mosquito are preparing to come over and have a feast with me at night... Lol
Then I carefully make sure my environment is tidy, and clean, I am allergic to dirt and dusty zones. So I take due precautions.
The closest I have been to getting malaria is when I do not observe any of the procedures above and once I get the signs, I get treated too by asking for the tablets as you do
It works wonders when you treat it early than if you let it wander around hoping it will be gone on it own
However, there are those times when leaving it to wander around works magic too. This happens if it's not severe and was only as a result of stress and not eating well. So if you take a long haul of rest and eat well, your malaria disappears like magic without drugs.
I wonder if there are people who experience the same thing
I would think the hospital would take note of that when they read your blood smears. The phenotype is rather apparent.
The truth is I have never been to the hospital after I grew up for any reason.
I guess I am joking around with my health .... I need to start looking into these things
I will definitely do that
Thanks for your comment
I remember these days I saw a program on Netflix about the most dangerous animals on the planet and of course the mosquito is number one! Your post reminded me of that, or you adapt or you become extinct, supposedly it is expected that in the long term no medicine will work for some supervirus, which acquires 100% resistance to long-spectrum antibiotics
Every 4 months! Damn that must be hard. I have a colleague over here from Nigeria, I remember him vaguely mentioning how bad the malaria problem is in his country. And he was writing a paper on that. I even helped with stat analysis, but those numbers didn't hit me then. After reading your post I kind of have a bit more context to those numbers. These recurrences every 2-3 months are they relapses from the parasite sitting dormant in the hepatocytes of the liver. Or are we talking about frequency of reinfection with the parasite?
Whatever statistics that is out there on malaria in Nigeria, the reality is probably worse because most cases won't even make it into the stats.
It is more of the former. Although the potential for the latter remains in areas with large mosquito population. Can't remember the last time I saw a mosquito around here but I'm a regular customer to the disease.
Not a doctor, but from doing lab work, drug-resistant malaria is a thing.
Also, the timing of your drugs also matter as the symptoms correlate to the stages of the parasites' life cycle.
Drug resistant malaria is actually a major plague. It's one of the reasons many are resorting to herbs for malarial treatment.
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STOPGentleshaid, It might be the case of relapsing malaria, Where hypnozoites or sleeping forms remain in the liver basically inactive for 3 months to a year. and start showing symptoms again.
May I ask, what over-the-counter drugs do you use?
There are a variety of drugs available, mostly of double combination therapy such as artemether-lumenfantrine, artemether-sulfadoxine, and their likes.