Short answers, pulled from the story.
Malaria is caused by single-celled parasites of the genus Plasmodium and is transmitted by the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes. The mosquito introduces parasites from its saliva into the blood, where they first mature in the liver before infecting and destroying red blood cells. Only female mosquitoes feed on blood and transmit the disease.
Early malaria symptoms include fever, chills, headache, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea, and the fever can settle into attacks recurring every two or three days. Symptoms typically begin 10 to 15 days after the mosquito bite. Severe malaria can cause anaemia, jaundice, convulsions, coma, kidney failure, and death.
According to the World Health Organization's 2025 World Malaria Report, there were an estimated 282 million new malaria cases globally in 2024, with 610,000 deaths. Children under five accounted for 75% of malaria deaths in Africa during 2024, and sub-Saharan Africa bears about 95% of cases and deaths.
P. falciparum is the most dangerous species, responsible for the vast majority of malaria deaths and most severe complications. It is prevalent in Africa and is the most commonly identified species among those infected. Severe malaria caused by P. falciparum should be treated as a medical emergency.
Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army doctor in Constantine, Algeria, first observed malaria parasites inside infected red blood cells in 1880 and won the 1907 Nobel Prize. Sir Ronald Ross proved the parasite's life cycle in mosquitoes in 1897 and received the 1902 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
As of 2023, two malaria vaccines have been endorsed by the World Health Organization, both targeting P. falciparum. The first, RTS,S or Mosquirix, completed clinical trials in 2014 and was piloted in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. The second, R21/Matrix-M, showed 77% efficacy in initial trials and was endorsed in 2023.
Malaria is treated with antimalarial medications, and guidelines since 2001 generally require two drugs in combination, one of them an artemisinin derivative. The most common first-line treatment for uncomplicated P. falciparum is artemether-lumefantrine taken orally over three days. Severe malaria is treated with intravenous artesunate.