 So when I was a young college student in West Africa, I woke up one morning and was sicker than I had ever felt in my life and My roommate came over and took one look at me and said dude. You have malaria, which At the time I kind of knew what that meant, but now looking back on it. I didn't know too much about malaria So how about we take a look at it today now first off? Malaria is a parasite now for those of you who know Maybe from some of our other lessons Parasite is something that lives off of the life force of another being so it lives inside or On another being and tries not necessarily always to kill it But to just live there and it basically really strongly depends on its host Which in this case I was the host and many other people out there are the host of malaria But it's not a very nice guest and it's been a guest who which has been around for a really long time they're archaeologists who are pulling up bones that are 50,000 years old and Finding signs of malaria so that means that this thing has been bugging us for a really long time and I was actually just reading in a National Geographic article and doing the reading for this lesson that There's some scientists out there that believe that one half of all the humans So of every human who ever lived of all the humans who ever lived actually died of malaria Just imagine that half of the people who ever live dying of malaria Now to get to that kind of scope to reach that many people you have to be kind of in more places than it is now Today malaria is kind of confined to the tropical areas But back in the day it was kind of everywhere and the name itself is Italian So you have mal aria, which means bad air and that's where it gets its name from now That does suggest that Malaria was in Italy and actually it's also attributed by some historians as being the head part of the reason behind the end of the Roman Empire, so there's a lot of Points in history where malaria kind of integrates itself into our human history It's kind of scary how it doesn't just integrate itself into our bodies But into everything about our history and about what's going on So let's take another look though before we move on at some numbers and we have these numbers over here But these numbers that I'm about to write are pretty bad and pretty depressing. So this is really bad in 2009 there were 225 million cases of Malaria says 2009 like I said and that is A lot of people that is the kind of it's the population of a pretty good-sized country Of those and this is the even more depressing part is that 650,000 people at least and some numbers put it as high as 1 million are dying of malaria each year and the death and mortality rate within Malay with people with malaria. It's a little bit complicated and we'll get into that later why that's so complicated, but just important to know this is the death rate down here and This is the number of cases. So let's take a look at a map that will show us sort of about Malarial zones now Places that are red here are called Malaria places that have malaria in the population either of humans or Mosquitoes which generally it's in both so You've got here. You can see the green countries Have very little risk of malaria and you can actually if you follow it you can see that the equator is right about here. So there is a relationship between temperature and mosquitoes and Disease vector here that is pretty strong Countries in northern Europe like this these guys all used to have malaria now if they've managed to kick it out Country like Egypt for example is also famous for having malaria also able to kick it out and the United States Which also a long time ago was very Malarial is no longer So move on to the next slide and this shows you so you saw in the previous slide where their malaria exists here You're seeing the effect of malaria and so you can see a country like Nigeria is being Strongly affected and this map is basically is just a measurement of the quality of life That is taken away by a certain disease So you can see the quality of life in Nigeria Congo lots of other sub-Saharan African countries is strongly reduced Whereas over here even though these are Malarial countries that you know all these countries are Malarial the quality of life is Dropping but not it's not been pulled down as strongly as it is in Africa And there's a lot of reasons for that. It's complicated, but we can get into that later Now we're gonna get into before we get to how the disease works We're gonna talk a little bit more about the effects because this is we really need to talk about the scope of this problem And the scope of malaria is absolutely Terrifying this is where it really Kind of it really hurts to write these numbers Half of the world population is at risk. So So you really have to think that That is a lot of people, you know, that's that's 3.5 billion people at risk and That's really kind of what gives malaria. It's big reputation. It's one of those diseases that people out there are really working and fighting against 90% of the deaths are in Sub-Saharan Africa. So That also has a really really strong impact Because it's so localized in one place of the effects Just imagine living in a place where 90% of you know, the deaths of a certain disease are happening. That's pretty pretty bad Going along with this because of the way malaria attacks it Strongly affects children. And so if you take a look at the at the numbers something like one in 20 children in Sub-Saharan Africa are Going to die of malaria or Die of malaria. So that is Really scary. Now this number and this children definition is actually Mostly confined to children who are under the age of five years old. So Children under five are really the highest at risk. But by the time they reach that age their immune systems have Grown enough and are strong enough that they might be able to fight it off a little better It doesn't just have an emotional or you know, human toll It also has just on a basic level a very strong financial toll And you know, this is feels petty putting this next to these other numbers But Africa is assumed to lose somewhere around 12 billion dollars a year to to malaria. So that is Really really really bad. Sorry. I'm spelling malaria And part of the reason for this is because of malaria is just really expensive to combat it it requires huge programs and Lots of medications and things like that huge campaigns to kill mosquitoes. And so part of the problem is that in some countries as how much as 40 percent of the health expenditures are going into Are going into malaria. So You have to really kind of imagine How much of a burden this is on these governments that are really not making a whole lot of money and not making a whole lot of revenue anyway, so More than just children. It also affects the elderly so People who are older and whose immune systems are not as strong and it also affects pregnant women so and They're unborn children and it also affects people with other diseases. So people with things like HIV AIDS, for example are at higher risk of death from From the malaria because it they already have compromised immune systems and they're already Their bodies are already fighting so hard to do take care of other problems when the malaria hits them It's not good. So that's some of the really gray and sort of sad facts about malaria Now this is where we're going to talk about transmission. This is how people get malaria right here This is a mosquito obviously Taking a blood meal from looks like a human victim here and what happens is the Mosquitoes sucks the blood up into their body and so in here is where the malaria is actually maturing and becoming an adult Breeding and then multiplying and as this mosquito is doing this So there's kind of possibly two things going on in this picture if this mosquito is malarial or if this person's malarial depending on On which one maybe it's both If the person is malarial so the malaria Bugs are in here Then they're sucked up inside they turn into adults They make babies and the babies like the little eggs go down here and they hang out in the salivary gland So so that's kind of the spit so you know it the spit of the mosquito And so when the mosquito is eating it's kind of pushing some spit down into this body And the eggs are then planted in the next victim So this mosquito goes and flies around in the meantime the malaria that they've sucked out of this person multiplies has babies and then the next victim not this person maybe but the next person Gets the eggs and the eggs go into their body. They mature well not completely But they use the body as sort of a playground a place to grow up and get bigger And then when they're sucked into the next mosquito They mature inside of that mosquito and are injected into the next victim. So that is How malaria passes itself around and it's absolutely fascinating We're going to go take another look at a slightly more detailed version of this here You can see the life cycles of the thing So we kind of did a really basic version of the life cycle before but you can see that it has different stages So it has stages within the mosquito It has stages with inside the human liver and then it has stages in the human blood And this is what's amazing about it is the mosquito bites and pretty much immediately takes a trip to the To the liver and that's where it kind of hangs out that's sort of like the home base in the body And so while it's in the liver, it's like multiplying and then it ruptures and it sends It's all of these little pieces of malaria out into your blood system. They circulate in your blood system make you very sick and Also get picked up by other other mosquitoes that then go and repeat this cycle over here And so the whole time you have it circulating through you and what's amazing and I was absolutely shocked by this Malaria when it takes some really important jumps between cells you've got your little malaria guy here They're smart enough. They're really really smart They wrap themselves in other cells or they wrap themselves and in other types of material So that when they're popping from one place to the next the immune system Which is kind of represented by like white blood cells doesn't detect them there They kind of are riding under the radar of the immune system And so it just kind of is in this thing and the immune system looks at it and says oh it looks like a cell But inside the cell up. There's a malaria inside there So that's how it kind of slips around mostly undetected and why it completely ravages your body when you get it and you have to consider that after 50,000 50,000 years of human evolution that it's been participating in it's gotten pretty good at Using our bodies as its playground now here are some of the symptoms of malaria And I can tell you from personal experience that I think I had every single one of these if not more Maybe not the large spleen, but If you go through and look at this these are the ones that you probably will notice first along with these ones up here You also get horrible headaches. You're gonna get fatigue and be tired. Everything hurts. Everything hurts And you'll get a cough Really important when you do get malaria drink water So make sure that you have as much liquids as you can and you really Because you're losing so much of your nutrition to this part right here You also need to be sure to try to eat of some kind even or take some sort of liquid energy of some kind It's the only way that you can really survive it So you really need to make sure that you're trying even though It's horrible to continue to maintain maintain your weight and maintain Like some sort of diet because actually I had it for two weeks and I lost like 10 kilos in two weeks Which for someone my size was a lot of weight here We can take a look at where the malaria really calls home and so you can see here This is a white blood cell this this right here is a white blood cell and this here is a red blood cell So you can see they kind of are these funny shapes actually and this is a red blood cell over here This probably one right here and I'm not a doctor, but I at least know this part so These red blood cells are where the malaria live and they they basically they break into the cell wall somehow and they get inside and Inside of the blood cell they just kind of travel around the body and then when they feel like hopping out they hop out and While they're in your blood they They really kind of mess with the way that your blood Operates and which is part of the reason that you get so sick now We're going to take a look at how treatment works. So this is really important. I kind of alluded to before how To maybe in the short term take care of yourself by drinking lots of Liquids and and trying to maintain as best a diet as you can Pretty much the only way to really truly get rid of it though is to go to some sort of doctor and usually and if you catch it early enough you're going to get some kind of oral drug and so That in my case was actually just a big box. It was like this big box Maybe look kind of like that and inside of it were these like yellow pills and they were pretty big I mean the pills that I was taking were probably intended for like small horses and cattle or something like that They were very big, but it has to be big because Killing malaria is not easy There's a lot of drug-resistant strains of malaria out there So they have to really be careful about how they do this so for more complicated cases They'll use some special drugs. So there'll be special Drugs or special drug cocktails For severe cases You're also going to experience especially if you have a special case more of that attention In terms of the drug-resistant strains because that is a really big problem They used to use back in the day quinine, but in recent years just very recently They've changed to a new kind of drug and I think it's called something like Artisanite or Artisunite. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but that is sort of the new standard for treatment now Really important here is prevention and this is actually really the most important part of the whole lesson So everyone pay attention. These right here are bed nets and now everyone probably knows what a bed net is But but these bed nets are key because it keeps the mosquitoes from getting in and biting People while they're sleeping because that's really when all of this happens at night as the Sun goes down The female mosquitoes, which are the ones that are biting and carrying the malaria They come out and they begin hunting and they start hunting right as the Sun goes down and they go all night until the Sun comes up again and So most of the infections are happening while people are sleeping So if instead of laying out and letting the mosquitoes bite you if you crawl under this nest Under this net and let yourself be protected then you'll be okay now these nets are not necessarily cheap They are by Western standards, but not something that everyone in the world can afford So there are programs out there that people can get nets And you can also make appeals to get nets as a community and things like that Which if you live in a community where there are no nets I would encourage you to do now. We'll take a look at just the few more ways of getting rid of it And this is really important Ways of dealing with it sort of in a longer term is often called Eradication so eradicating something is when you try to get rid of it So we want to try to get rid of malaria for good And so part of that whole equation is medicine so people out there trying to work on Immunizations and different types of medicines that can kill it There's also DDT and lots of other chemicals. So The problem with these often is that they have lots of other side effects They can harm the environment they can harm human health and they can be really bad for a lot of things but sometimes they You have to kind of weigh the risk. Is it worse to have malaria running rampant in an area? Or is it worse to have some pollution? So that's one thing that kind of comes into discussion a lot So I also just showed you there are bed nets. So bed nets are really important part of sort of the global Solution and I'm sorry not in nets for the Z. That's for the S Paying attention there and they're also bedclothes. So there's also a line of clothing that you can put on that Help protect you from the mosquitoes now Like I said medicine. There's also immunization which is on my list here, but we're gonna put it under medicine. So Immunize Asian Really important. There's lots of people out there working on that project right now and a really important way And this is like one of the really easy innovative solutions that you can do even in your own community Is to remove standing water or to be avoid standing water? and what that means is if you have maybe a place where there's a puddle in front of your house or There's maybe around your house like a pond or something like that trying to find ways of Moving further away from those what bodies of water or By removing them if they're really small and something you can really get rid of and the reason for that is because Mosquitoes breed and live their nests are in water and they need water So if you get rid of all the tiny little puddles and maybe you know if you have like old tires laying around or maybe Little spots where water collects you just go out and remove those and this can be a community project that you can work on and lots of communities around the world have done this and really cut down on their Not the number of cases of malaria in their village or in their region So that's really important Now the last one is my favorite and I think the most important one on sort of a global level and that is Education so teaching people what malaria is how it works and how to get rid of it So you guys are now after having watched this video are a part of this Education is huge and so go out and tell people in your community about what you learned here and make it a part of your own way of Fighting against malaria and protecting yourself and your family and your community So if you have any questions you can take a look online. We have we'll have lots of links Attached to this lesson and you'll be able to go out and explore more about malaria So good luck and stay healthy out there