Malaria is a serious health threat in many regions, but the good news is that it is both preventable and curable. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself and treat the disease effectively.
- Avoid Mosquito Bites
Prevention starts with protection against mosquito bites so keeping mosquitoes away is your first line of defence:
- Sleep under mosquito nets if you’re in a place where malaria is common.
- Use mosquito repellents like sprays or creams that contain DEET, IR3535, or Icaridin, especially after the sun goes down.
- Burn mosquito coils or use vaporizers to keep your home mosquito-free.
- Wear long sleeves and pants to cover your skin when outside.
- Install screens on windows to stop mosquitoes from coming in.
- Preventive Chemoprevention
For people who are really at risk, like pregnant women and young kids, preventive chemoprevention can be a lifesaver. This involves taking a full course of antimalarial medicine during the peak malaria season to prevent infection, regardless of whether the individual is currently infected.
- Vaccine
Since 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a vaccine for malaria called RTS,S/AS01. It’s especially for children living in places where there’s a lot of malaria. This vaccine prevents them from getting sick with malaria and is now used in many African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi.
- Treating Malaria
Getting the right treatment quickly is very important:
- Get tested fast if you think you have malaria. Places like Shalina Diagnostics Centres in Nigeria can check if you have malaria.
- Take the right medicine. Your doctor will decide what medicine is best based on the type of malaria you have, your age, and if you’re pregnant.
- Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is a combination of two or more drugs and is the most effective antimalarial medicine available today. An example is artemether-lumefantrine. Artmether kills the malaria parasites fast which reduces symptoms quickly. Lumefantrine prevents malaria symptoms from re-occurring.
Conclusion
By protecting yourself from mosquito bites and getting the right treatment, you can beat malaria. Whether it’s using a preventive anti-malaria medication, getting a vaccine, or seeing a doctor if you’re sick, every step counts towards a malaria-free future.
References
https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/prevention/preventive-chemotherapies
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/symptoms_malaria.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/malaria/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351190
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/malaria
