Malaria Life Cycle

Malaria is a contagious disease caused by five different Plasmodium parasites that have similar life cycles.1 These parasites have a complex life cycle that requires an insect vector most commonly female Anopheles mosquito and a human host. The life cycle of the malaria parasite is composed of human stages and mosquito stages.2 The discovery of the first stage during which the parasites develop in the liver before entering the blood stream was done by Henry Shortt and Cyril Garnham in 1948. In 1982, another discovery was made by Wojciech Krotoski demonstrating the presence of dormant period in the liver that occurs in the final stage. These discoveries play an important role in the understanding of the life cycle of malaria prasites.1 Moreover,

In the blood, the merozoites exit the liver and invade the red blood cells. Then, the merozoites within the cells will convert into a ring like structure forming tropozoite. Soon after, the trophozoite will multiply asexually to form many more marozoites.4 Furthermore, it will cause the red blood cells to rupture. This cycle will repeat for one to three days. The cycle of infection, division, and disruption continues until it is brought under control by the immune system or by antimalarial drugs.1 During this stage the clinical manifestations of malaria such as chills and fevers start

The first two stages exo-erythrocitic cycle and the erythrocytic cycle occur in the human host, whereas the final sporogonic stage continues in the mosquito. The life cycle starts when the mosquito infects the human blood with the malaria parasite. The plasmodium travels to the liver via the bloodstream. Furthermore, the parasites multiply in the liver and proceed to invade red blood cells; moreover, parasites enter a phase of sexual reproduction that continues in the mosquito's gut. The parasites complete sexual reproduction and then rapidly multiply to produce many more parasites that are readily transmitted to other human hosts. Finally, The life cycle of malaria parasites demonstrates the process in which humans get diseased with