What are the symptoms and medical implications of malaria?
The symptoms at first are not always dramatic and can often be dismissed as something important [9]. Within the first 7-30 days, there may be flu-like symptoms such as headache, nausea, fever, and vomiting [9]. Moreover, warning indications may appear at what may seem like random intervals [9]. Cyclic symptoms are caused by the life cycle of the parasites as they develop, mature, reproduce and are released into the blood stream to reinfect even more blood and liver cells [9]. In the case of the most serious and common strain, Plasmodium falciparum, which can lead to cerebral malaria, symptoms include impaired consciousness, seizures, neurological damage, and coma [2]. Without the knob binding complexes, which is an exclusive feature of Plasmodium falciparum, red blood cells do not stick to the walls of blood vessels, and infected individuals do not experience symptoms such as cerebral malaria [10]. Also unique to this strain is the 48 hour life-cycle, which causes fever on day one, the
