Thinking about the high number of mosquitos that fly around every day in my neighborhood, and the fact that my baby sometimes does not want me to cover him with his mosquito net since he wants to hold my hands until he falls deeply asleep, this got me worried about the possibility of him being affected by malaria.
As a precautionary means, I ensure that I use insecticide more often and have him properly covered at all times. In hot and tropical areas, malaria is very common, caused by parasites that are carried by mosquitoes. The mosquitoes pick up the parasite by biting a person who has the disease already, and then it passes it down to others by biting them as well.
Image source
Malaria is not a new thing as millions of people are infected on a yearly base with most cases being in Sub-Saharan Africa and more than half a million deaths too. Although cases of malaria are sporadic in the United States, it still affects those who get to travel a lot, especially in those regions where malaria is dominant.
Infants are believed to be protected against malaria at the first stage of life, basically due to the transfer of maternal antibodies and fetal hemoglobin, and this is the reason why young infants have received little to no attention when it comes to research and guidelines on malaria.
The classification of malaria in infants is done based on the time of infection. Congenital malaria is detected in the peripheral blood or cord blood during the first week of life of the infant, this happens through a transmission from the mother through the placenta before or during delivery. Malaria in pregnancy was found to account for 100,000 cases of neonatal deaths annually.
Neonatal malaria happens within the first 28 days of an infant's life, it is due to an infective mosquito bite after birth. It may be difficult to diagnose malaria in young infants a the clinical presentation may mimic other diseases like sepsis. The signs of congenital malaria are; Jaundice, fever, splenomegaly, anemia, vomiting, hepatomegaly, restlessness, poor feeding, drowsiness, cyanosis, respiratory distress, and even a possible case of convulsions.
Most areas where resources are limited find it highly difficult to diagnose malaria in young infants and as a result of diagnosis being missed, most of these infants will die at their homes and the cause of deaths will remain unrecorded and undetermined. For this reason, the overall rate of malaria mortality in infants below six months is often uncertain.
Therefore, infants below six months have been excluded from previous clinical traits and national treatment guidelines related to P.falciparum malaria. So even when treated, oral antimalarials that are recommended as first-line therapies are usually used off-label. However, the use of adequate dosage is important, but this is quite difficult once again since pediatric prescription is unavailable.
Current plans aim to obtain more accurate results of malaria prevalence in infants below 6 months living under different types of endemic conditions.
Conclusion.
So many neonates unfortunately die before malaria is diagnosed as routine malaria test is absent, or the fact that malaria cannot be identified due to overlapping symptoms with other forms of neonatal illnesses like sepsis.
However, parents and caregivers must ensure their infants are adequately protected against mosquito bites but still report every sign of illness to a medical expert who could recommend an appropriate treatment from acquired knowledge through past experiences.
For Further Studies.
https://www.severemalaria.org/severe-malaria/groups-at-risk/severe-malaria-treatment-in-children
https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2875-11-400
https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-018-2327-0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480393/
Hi, I am Tobi, a writer, speaker, relationship blogger, and lover of good music. I love making friends and learning from people. If you want to hear me speak on relationships and general life issues, you can find my YouTube channel where you can watch any episode for free, please do not forget to subscribe, friends. I sincerely appreciate every love I get from here, Kindly do well to keep them coming.
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