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HISTORY OF MALARIA
Symptoms and characteristics of malaria have been documented in historical writings from ancient times [1], such as the Ebers Papyrus from 1570 before Christ (B.C.) [2] and the Chinese medical book Nei Ching (2700 B.C.) [3]. These records mentioned splenomegaly, periodical fevers and headaches. The prevalence of the disease in early civilizations was confirmed with modern methods, which detected malaria antigens in the skin and lungs of Egyptian mummies dating back to 3200 and 1304 B.C. [2]. In the Roman Republic (200 B.C.) the isease was prominent in the marshes of the Roman Campagna region and temples were dedicated to the goddess Febris, pictured with a prominent belly and swollen veins, in ancient Rome [3]. The condition was eventually known as Roman fever and gave rise to the Italian word mal’aria meaning « bad air », regarded as the cause of the disease at the time [1]
In 1880, Laveran (1845-1922) examined the blood of a soldier in Algeria suffering from intermittent fever and noticed crescent-shaped bodies within red blood cells. He subsequently realised that the bodies were alive and named them Oscillaria malariae. He could detect these life forms in 148 blood specimens from malaria patients, but not in those of controls [4]. Laveran reported his findings, but Italian scientists that also observed the motile parasites within erythrocytes subsequently named them Plasmodium malariae without considering Laveran’s reports [1]. However, 26 years later in 1906, Laveran received a Nobel prize for discovering the causative agent of malaria [5]. Seventeen years after Laveran’s discovery (1897), Ronald Ross (1857-1932)
demonstrated that the dapple-winged, brown Anopheles mosquito transmits malaria [6]. In 1898 he postulated that human malaria goes through the same developmental stages as bird malaria [7, 8]. He received a Nobel prize for his work in 1902 [5].
Almost 60 years after the erythrocytic stages of malaria were discovered (1948), the tissue stages of primate and human malaria parasites were detected in the livers of rhesus monkeys infected with P. cynomolgi sporozoites by Shortt, Garnham and colleagues at the Ross Institute in London. Shortt and colleagues later also described the complete life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum [9].
CHAPTER 1
1.1 HISTORY OF MALARIA
1.2 MALARIA AS GLOBAL HEALTH PROBLEM.
1.3 THE PARASITE’S LIFE CYCLE
1.4 HUMAN MALARIA SPECIES.
1.5 THE PATHOGENESIS AND CLINICAL PRESENTATION OF MALARIA
1.6 ANTIMALARIAL VACCINES.
1.7 ANTIMALARIAL THERAPEUTICS
1.9 POLYAMINE METABOLISM
1.10 MOLECULAR ASPECTS OF MALARIA
1.11 FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS FOR DRUG DISCOVERY AND TARGET VALIDATION
CHAPTER 2
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.3 RESULTS
2.4 DISCUSSION.
CHAPTER 3
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
3.3 RESULTS
3.4 DISCUSSION
3.5 RAW DATA AND SUPPLEMENTARY WEBSITE
CHAPTER 4
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
4.3 RESULTS
4.4 DISCUSSION.
