Pharmacological Approach to Combat Mosquito Transmitted Malaria

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10.7

CONCLUSION

mosquitos of the genus Anopheles are responsible for transmitting malaria, that ac-

counts for a large proportion of deaths in Africa. Worldwide, a child perishes every two

minutes because of that vector, and sadly, Africa bears about 90% of all malaria mortalities

especially among children under the age of 5 years. This is also the age group that suffer

the greatest burden of the disease. The principal objective of treatment is to necessitate the

quick and complete removal of the Plasmodium parasites from a patient’s circulation to

prevent an uncomplicated malaria from progressing to severe infection or mortality.

Finding the right dosing for children is dependent on several factors, including their

age, weight, health status etc. Early treatment and careful consideration and estimation of

dose should be done to ensure successful dose to complete removal of the parasite, because

children are hit hard, and if untreated, they are at risk of getting severe malaria and even

cerebral malaria. The first line of treatment is the use artemether and lumefantrine together.

A combination product is becoming more and more vital because the parasite has been

developing resistance towards many of the drugs available. Not getting the right drugs can

have a long lasting neurological and/or behavioral impact on young children that get severe

and cerebral malaria.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This chapter is partly based on work performed within the framework of IMAAC

(https://imaac.eu/) related to COST Action CA16227 (Investigation & Mathe-

matical Analysis of Avant-garde Disease Control via Mosquito Nano-Tech-Repellents,

https://cost.eu/actions/CA16227/), supported by COST Association (Euro-

pean Cooperation in Science and Technology).