Malaria pathology

P. malariae), P. falciparum is responsible for the most severe form. At particular risk of developing severe malaria-associated pathology are the non-immune, including tourists and, in endemic areas, children and pregnant women during first pregnancy. 

The range of pathology may be different when it is related to climate it is for this reason that American and European universities have, for a long time, established schools and departments of tropical medicine. Probably the area of infectious disease is the best example, and malaria one of the clearest examples within the group. If pathology is specific to a region, then clinical trials almost always have to be conducted in those same geographical areas. 

Haidar et al. (2007) suggest that if cerebral sequestration is responsible for coma but not death in patients with cerebral malaria, then a spectrum of sequestration pathologies would be expected at autopsy and many factors may lead to death (i.e. parasitemia, parasite strain, malnutrition, hyperthermia, dehydration, anaemia, acidosis, unprotected airway, acidosis and human polymorphisms). This is consistent with the relatively low cerebral malaria mortality however, if sequestration is responsible for the death of the comatose cerebral malaria patient then perhaps an exact anatomical lesion (i.e. sequestration in the brainstem) would lead to sudden death. 

Coban, C., Ishii, K. J., Uematsu, S., Arisue, N., Sato, S., Yamamoto, M., Kawai, T., Takeuchi, O., Hisaeda, H., Horii, T., and Akira, S. (2007). Pathological role of Toll-like receptor signaling in cerebral malaria. Int. Immunol. 19, 67-79. 

A variety of factors have contributed to the resurgence of malaria, and continue to foster the disease (47). These include socioeconomic and political problems, as well as inadequacies in public health care. Two principal causes of malarial resurgence were (i) the emergence of insecticide-resistant strains of the anopheline mosquitos which are the vectors for transmission of the disease, and (ii) drug-resistant strains of the parasite responsible for the pathology of the most lethal form of the disease, Plasmodium falciparum. Due to the latter, P. falciparum strains which are resistant to the antimalarial effect of chloroquine are spread throughout most of the areas where the disease is endemic, and resistance to more recently introduced antimalarial... 

Li C, Seixas E, Langhorne J 2001 Rodent malarias The mouse as a model for understanding immune response and pathology induced by erythrocytic stages of the parasite. Med Microbiol Immunol 189 115—126... 

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