Malaria is transmitted by the bite of an infected female mosquito of the genus anopheles. Malaria is an endemic in most tropical countries including Rwanda, The disease is characterized by extreme overtiredness associated with outburst of high fever; sweating; shaking chills; and anemia.There are also other types of malaria in other animals but in this article I will only highlight the four types of malarias in human beings.Malaria in humans is caused by four types of bacteria of the protozoa group; just like the amoebas is one of the protozoa germs. The four types are plasmodium falciparum; plasmodium vivax; plasmodium ovale; and plasmodium malariae; and now let us look one after another. Malaria caused by plasmodium vivax is a form of malaria that is less severe in its nature as compared to that caused by Plasmodium falciparum, but it is always characterized by a higher probability for relapses to occur. Febrile meaning feverish condition is so out bursting on every other day. Malaria caused by plasmodium falciparum. This is the severest form of malaria and is associated with the highest levels of parasites in the blood. This disease is characterized by irregularly recurring febrile or feverish out burst that in extreme cases it may occur with acute cerebral, renal, or gastrointestinal manifestations or complications.This is the type that causes lack of sleep when a person is having it and if not attended to as early as possible a coma may result with the presence of an acute infection and rarely other Plasmodium species may cause cerebral malaria. Initial clinical signs and symptoms include headaches; convulsions; and alterations of mental state followed by a rapid progression to coma. Pathologic features include cerebral capillaries filled with parasitized erythrocytes (The red blood cells filled with malaria parasites) and multiple small sections in the brain may encounter death as the disease progressesAnother last but one type of malaria is plasmodium vivax, this species is found almost everywhere malaria is widespread and is the only one that has a range extending into the temperate regions. The last type is plasmodium ovale, Too often we hear about the outbreaks of malaria in villages and towns in our country of course as we all know the densely populated areas are hit than other areas, but the situation becomes even worse in the swampy and bushy areas, all these shows that there is continued risk for mosquito borne transmission of this disease.The likelihood of mosquito borne transmission in our country as is elsewhere dependon the interactions between the human host, anopheline vector, malaria parasite, andenvironmental conditions. Recent changes in the climatic condition may influence the spread of malaria than it has been before.It is however possible and affordable to prevent malaria by using a combination of traditional methods with modern ones. Of the traditional ,methods I would say of clearing bushes near the habitats, draining all the stagnant water around house, allowing children to play in-houses only during evening times, encourage all children to wear long sleeved clothes, of course we cannot forget to mention the improvement of diet for children and pregnant mothers. There are a number of modern methods of preventing malaria, these are using mosquito repellents, using mosquito net which are treated, some even recommend to use malaria prophylaxis of which are readily available to the market, but I would not advice you to take one without consulting you doctor. Prevention is better than cure, please have a look on the data for cure of malaria, I am sure you will all agree with me that if we can prevent ourselves from malaria, then our economy can grow be it at home or national wide.An economic model which applies the average cost of malaria per case to the known number of cases in Rwanda for 1989 estimated the total cost to be $ 2.88 per capita (in 1987 US dollars). Of this cost, $0.63 per capita represents the direct cost of treatment, including care of outpatients and hospitalized cases in government and private facilities, as well as self-treatment. The other $ 2.25 per capita represents the indirect costs of productive time lost to malaria morbidity in adults and to care for sick children, and the cost of lifetime earnings lost through premature malaria mortality.The average output per day of the Rwandan economy was $0.83 in 1989. Thus, the per capita malaria cost equals 3.5 days of production or 1% of GDP. The average cost of each of the 1,722,271 reported malaria cases in 1989 was $11.82: $2.58 in direct and $9.24 in indirect cost.The direct cost per case is equal to 160% of the per capita budget of the Ministry of Health. Ends
