Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about malaria. And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero to finals.com slash malaria or in the infectious diseases section

of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by members of the Plasmodium family of protozoan

parasites.

I remember that protozoa are single-celled organisms.

The most severe and dangerous member of the family is called Plasmodic. I remember that protozoa are single-celled organisms.

The most severe and dangerous member of the family is called Plasmodium falsiparum,

and this accounts for about 75% of cases of malaria in the UK.

Malaria is spread through bites from the female Anophilies mosquito that carry the disease.

There's a very specific type of mosquito called anophiles and it's only the female variation of that type of mosquito that carry the disease.

It commonly occurs in travellers who have come back from areas where malaria is known to be present

and it's extremely unlikely to

catch malaria in an area where there's no malaria known to be present. There's four types you need

to be aware of for your exams. Plasmodium falsiparum is definitely the one to remember for your exams,

as this is the most severe and dangerous form and also the most common.

Plasmodium vivax, plasmodium ovale and plasmodium malaria are the other three forms that you need to be

aware of. First we need to talk about the life cycle of malaria. Malaria, like we said, is spread by

the female Anophil mosquitoes, and this is

usually at night time. So infected blood is sucked up by feeding mosquitoes from an animal that's

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