healthdailymail.com "Health News" Malaria is an infectious disease that is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. You get it from the bite of a type of female mosquito that carries the parasite.
Diagnosis of malaria
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and examine you. He or she will ask you about which countries or regions you have visited within the last year. It’s very important that you tell him or her if you have travelled abroad. This includes any stopovers you have had.
Malaria is a medical emergency and needs to be treated as soon as possible. If your doctor suspects that you have malaria, he or she may do a blood test. Alternatively, if it’s not possible to get the results within four hours, you may be referred to hospital for the test. This is to find out what type of parasite you have been infected with and how much there is in your blood. If your blood test is negative, you will still need to have two further blood tests over one to three days. This is because the levels of parasite in your blood can vary. For example, if you have taken antimalarial medicines, the levels of parasite may be too low to detect.
If you’re diagnosed with malaria, your doctor must tell the public health authorities. It’s important that anybody you travelled with also gets tested for malaria. He or she may be infected but not know as symptoms don’t always develop immediately.
Treatment of malaria
Malaria can be treated with medicines but it’s important that you start these as soon as possible. Your treatment will depend on a number of things including what type of malaria you have. Certain medicines don't work for malaria from some parts of the world – your doctor will ask where you have been and take this into account. The length of time that your treatment takes will vary depending on how severe your infection is.
Some medicines used to treat malaria are also used to help prevent the infection. However, if you have taken a medicine to prevent malaria, you can't take the same one again to treat it. Therefore, it's important to tell your doctor about any antimalarial medicines you have taken – if possible, take the medicine packaging to your appointment.
0 Response to "How to diagnosis and treatment of malaria"
Post a Comment