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Malaria is a disease caused by a specific parasite called Plasmodium falciparum that infects Mosquitoes. This padlet will take you through the steps of how Malaria travels.

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Malaria is transferred through mosquitoes, specifically a female Anopheles mosquito. To become infected, the mosquito would have to take a blood meal from a human or animal who was already infected with Malaria. This makes mosquitoes the vector of Malaria and Plasmodium falciparum the protist of Malaria.

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When the mosquito injects blood from a person with Malaria, they also ingest gametocytes. Gametocytes are cells that divide to create gametes, which are split into male and female cells. At this point, the gametes have separated themselves from the red blood cells.

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The female gamete creates a fertilized egg with the help of the male gamete-- called a zygote. This begins the early stage of the parasite

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The zygote travels through the midgut wall of the mosquito and matures into an ookinete. As the ookinete settles into the gut wall of the mosquito, it becomes an oocyst. The oocyst cells begin dividing and multiplying inside the oocyst. These cells become sporozoites, which cause the oocysts to burst and travel to the salivary glands

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After the sporozoites are in the mosquito's salivary glands, it makes it so that when the mosquito bites its next human, the Malaria-infected sporozoites travel to the human through the mosquito's spit that the mosquito uses to unclot the human blood.

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The sporozoites enter the human's blood flow after they are bitten by the anopheles mosquito. The sporozoites travel to the liver through the blood and they reproduce asexually there. They divide into merozoites.

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Merozoites in the bloodstream infect erythrocytes (red blood cells). What that means is that they will infiltrate the erythrocytes and form rings around it. They will multiply until the blood cells form a vacuole around themselves. But eventually, the erythrocyte will burst because there is so much multiplying of the parasite.

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Within the red blood cell, the merozoites take from the hemoglobin in the RBC. This changes the actual shape of the erythrocyte.

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The cycle continues as more and more RBC's burst because the merozoite reproduce asexually at a fast rate and ultimately spread to more erythrocytes.

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The incubation period for Malaria can vary from 7 - 30 days. The incubation period is how long it takes between exposure to a parasite and development of symptoms.

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Symptoms begin to show because the red blood cells are being affected heavily by the merozoites. When a big amount are affected, then it affects how the body gets oxygen. There would be a large lack of oxygen, which leads to fatigue, shortness of breath, etc.