How long does malaria stay in your system?
CEREBRAL MALARIA LONG-TERM EFFECTS
The effects of malaria infection on the body can be
profound, resulting in long-term health effects ranging from increased
susceptibility to bacterial infection to cognitive decline. Even though some of
these negative consequences are well-known for the most serious types
of disease, emerging evidence suggests that this is just the beginning.
According to specialists in the condition, immunity to the
parasite develops with exposure to the illness, enabling apparently healthy
people to regulate but not cure their sickness. Treatment is not sought because
they no longer experience fever. The ensuing hidden, chronic infection not only
adds to the spread of malaria but also gradually worsens people's health and
ability to develop normally.
Acute organ failures, aberrant blood cell counts, and
metabolic dysfunctions, both alone or in combination, are at the other extreme
of the disease spectrum and cause severe malaria when infections are compounded
by them. Even with the proper medications available, mortality remains high.
Adding to the confusion, the WHO World Malaria Report for this year notes that
it can be difficult to properly identify severe malaria cases, especially in
places with few clinical and laboratory capabilities.
Malaria infection can cause severe neurological
complications, the most serious of which is cerebral malaria. Sub-Saharan
African children are the most afflicted, and those who survive frequently have
lifelong conditions that can significantly lower their quality of life. These
conditions include epilepsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and
impairments of cognitive, and motor, including visual coordination.
An obvious clinical sign of cerebral malaria is a coma that
advances quickly. Using age-specific coma scores with distinct cutoffs for kids
and adults, this neurological condition is identified. At the moment, it is
indicated by an adult Glasgow Coma Score of 11 or less (indicating a moderate
to severe brain injury) and a kid Blantyre Coma Score of 3 or less.
Surprisingly, recent research in Ugandan children revealed
that some of these long-term neurological consequences are also present in
cases of cerebral malaria without a clinically diagnosed disease. The impact on
the brain can occur regardless of the patient's level of consciousness,
according to these unexpected new results. But since less research has been
done on adults, there is far less information available.
This motivated our team to look into the occurrence of
cerebral malaria-related brain alterations in patients who weren't in a coma.
For malaria patients to receive better care and have better outcomes, it was
essential to close this knowledge gap.s
Our current research, funded by the US National Institutes of Health and published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, makes the first-ever claim that unsuspected brain alterations are frequently brought on by malaria infections brought on by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite.
These results imply that a significant number of malaria
patients may be suffering brain damage that goes unrecognized because they
don't meet the diagnostic thresholds currently in place. This emphasizes the
need for fresh approaches to finding cases with "silent" cerebral
malaria and enhancing their paths for treatment.
We assessed the effects of P. falciparum infection on the
brains of adult malaria patients in India who did not meet the diagnostic
criteria for cerebral malaria using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of
the individuals. These included individuals with simple malaria cases and
people who had serious organ damage outside of the brain. We used a
cutting-edge method to detect minute brain changes, and we were startled to
find that both groups of infected people had varying degrees of brain damage.
Notwithstanding the absence of coma, the severe cases
without obvious neurological consequences had a wide spectrum of brain
alterations on MRI, with the most obvious findings resembling those we have
previously seen in cerebral malaria. In addition, we discovered that compared
to straightforward instances, this group exhibited increased plasma levels of
S100B, a well-known marker of brain injury frequently linked to long-term
THESE FINDINGS HAVE SIGNIFICANT IMPLICATIONS.
They first question our current clinical definition of
cerebral malaria because all adult patients with substantial MRI-detected brain
abnormalities are not included in the Glasgow Coma Score cutoff of 11 or less.
From this perspective, it's significant to note that the WHO
recently raised the threshold for adult cerebral malaria from 9 and below,
where it had previously been placed. Despite this modification, a large number
of adult patients who do not meet the stringent diagnosis nonetheless have
cerebral involvement and may be at risk of developing post-infection
Although MRI scans are far more accurate at detecting
cerebral damage caused by severe malaria, neuroimaging facilities are rarely
accessible in regions where the disease is widespread, such as Africa or
Southeast Asia. Therefore, new methods are required, such as biomarkers linked
to potentially detrimental brain alterations seen on MRI, in order to quickly
and accurately identify patients with silent cerebral malaria.
Additionally, and perhaps more crucially, it is unknown at
this time whether these modifications will have short- or long-term consequences
on neurological and cognitive processes following infection. The potential of
modest but long-lasting problems, which have never been evaluated in this
patient population, is strongly suggested by the combination of cerebral
malaria-like MRI patterns and high plasma levels of a brain damage marker.
We urgently require investigations evaluating the magnitude
and significance of brain alterations in adult patients with severe P.
falciparum infection who are not in a coma in light of this new report in order
to inform and create effective techniques to identify people at risk and aid in
their recovery and rehabilitation.
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- Malaria symptoms
- Causes of malaria
- Malaria treatment
- Cerebral malaria
- Types of malaria and their symptoms
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