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Treating Malaria
When
should malaria be treated?
The
disease should be treated early in its course, before it
becomes severe and poses a risk to the patient's life. Several
good antimalarial drugs are available, and should be
administered early on. The most important step is to think
about malaria, so that the disease is diagnosed and treated in
time.
What is
the treatment for malaria?
Malaria
can be cured with prescription drugs.
The type of drugs and length of treatment
depend on which kind of malaria is diagnosed, where the
patient was infected, the age of the patient, whether the
patient is pregnant, and how severely ill the patient is at
start of treatment.
If I get
malaria, will I have it for the rest of my life?
No, not
necessarily. Malaria can be treated. If the right drugs are
used, people who have malaria can be cured and all the malaria
parasites can be eliminated. However, the disease can persist
if it is left untreated or if it is treated with the wrong
drug. Some drugs are ineffective because the parasite is
resistant to them. Some patients may be treated with the right
drug, but at the wrong dose or for too short a period of time.
Two types
(species) of parasites,
Plasmodium vivax
and
P. ovale,
have dormant liver stages that can remain silent for years.
Left untreated, these liver stages may reactivate and cause
malaria attacks ("relapses") after months or years without
symptoms. Patients diagnosed with
P. vivax or
P. ovale are
often given a second drug to help prevent these relapses.
Another type (species),
P. malariae, if
left untreated, has been known to persist in the blood of some
persons for several decades.
But in
general, if you are correctly treated for malaria, the
parasites are eliminated and you are no longer infected with
malaria.
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