How do malarial parasites cause disease?
The manifestations of malaria may be attributed to three main factors: 1. the species of parasite involved 2. the inflammatory response by infected humans to the presence of the parasite, resulting in headache, fever, chills, etc., and 3. anaemia, arising from the destruction of an enormous number of red blood cells. The most important species causing human malaria is P. falciparum, the same one that is implicated in the resurgence of infections in Jamaica. In a nutshell, P. falciparum infects a higher proportion of red blood cells; has a higher rate of reproduction; and is responsible for more clinical complications than any of the other species causing human malaria. The most common complication is cerebral malaria. This occurs in about 10 per cent of untreated falciparum malaria cases, and accounts for up to 80 per cent of such deaths. Cerebral malaria, which presents itself as progressive headache and increasingly high fever, has been blamed on the blocking of the very fine blood v
