 In this video I will be talking a little bit more about malaria in children and malaria in pregnant ladies and new mothers. No, malaria is not contagious. The prime way of malaria to spread is through mosquito bites. It can also spread through certain rare known methods, for example blood transfusion. It can also spread through organ donation or organ transplantation. It can also spread sometimes from mother to the child. So these are few rarer ways but then the predominantly major way of malaria spread is through mosquito bites only. Yes, of course, getting malaria more than once is a known phenomenon. Recurrent diseases are usually seen in either reinfection or relapse or inadequately treated previous malaria. So it is not an unknown thing to have malaria twice or thrice. Patient can get it. Yes, of course, when they get malaria they have to be treated, although the dosages of malaria drugs in the children or among the children differs from what we use in the adults and they have to be more according to their weight. So we definitely treat the malaria in cases of children also with the similar drugs but at different dosages. When a pregnant lady gets malaria she is at higher risk of developing complications associated with malaria. So she can develop kidney related issues, she can develop complications associated with liver, she can also develop complications associated with brain, she can develop complications associated with other organs. The best way to prevent malaria is probably avoiding the mosquitoes and in certain areas where hyperendemicity or increased number of malaria cases is common, in such areas we can also use something called preventive therapy after screening. So these are certain measures which are utilized by different national and international bodies in areas where malaria is very common. When I say how to avoid mosquito, the answer will be predominantly these mosquitoes are seen in morning and in the evening, dusk and dawn, so we should avoid going outside during these times. Also, we should wear full sleeve clothes, something with full sleeves and long legs and also trying to cover your head and neck with a cap will be a better idea. Whenever you are not able to prevent them completely then you should use mosquito nets. Using mosquito repellent in the exposed part of your body is also a good idea and last but not the least, we should also concentrate on preventing the mosquito breeding, hence we should try and remove all the potted water from everywhere possible. That leads to more mosquito breeding, hence more mosquitoes and hence more malaria and vector bone diseases like malaria, dengue etc. If a pregnant female who has malaria has to breastfeed her child, she can go ahead and do it, do it if she is feeling healthy enough to do so. So children belonging to age group of 6 months to 5 years of age, they are at higher risk of developing complications associated with malaria because they do not have protective maternal antibodies anymore, hence they are more vulnerable and they can land up into severe complications associated and even fertility. First and foremost, we should concentrate on clinical symptom recovery, so anybody who has stopped getting fever, who has stopped vomiting, who has other symptoms like pain and abdomen, malaise and other things have started to settle down further, that means the patient is improving. But we have to confirm it through a laboratory test to be certain of this. So we repeat the peripheral smear that is a test to check the parasitic count in the blood. We can do it every day to see whether the number of parasites in blood are decreasing or not. Once it is reduced and finally disappears from the blood, that means the child is completely cured.