Malaria: treatment and prevention Treatment of malaria differs depending on the patient. For more severe cases, patients receive blood transfusions. Others take various medications to get rid of the parasite. Many of these drugs are also used for preventive purposes. Mosquito eradication and mosquito nets are also ways to prevent malaria. Unfortunately, there are many difficulties in creating malaria vaccines, so they are currently still in development. Every 30 seconds, at least one person dies from malaria. Every year approximately 350-500 million people are infected with malaria and of these approximately 1.3-3 million die. The mortality rate is expected to double in the next twenty years (“Malaria”, 2006). Of course we must try to prevent this from happening. There are many ways to treat and prevent malaria. Malaria Cases in South Africa, 1971-2003 (“Malaria,” 1996) The treatment for each malaria patient depends on the specific parasite causing the infection, the severity of the infection, the health condition of the patient, and the drug resistance of the parasite. If the parasite has infected more than 5% of the blood cells, the patient experiences severe confusion, or pulmonary complications, replacement blood transfusion is sometimes used to treat malaria. This procedure occurs when the donor's blood is injected while the patient's blood is drawn. This is the quickest way to remove the parasite from the blood. The drug chloroquine has been used for many years to treat malaria, but the most dangerous type of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, has developed resistance to this drug, rendering it more or less useless. There are at least ten other antimalarial drugs used today to treat malaria. Extracts from the Artemisia Annua plant are very effective, but there is not enough of them... half of the article ......Literature list (1996, October). Department of Health. Retrieved July 28, 2006, from the Malaria website: http://www.doh.gov.za/issues/malaria.html(2004, May 5). Malaria. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from the Laboratory Identification of Parasites of Public Health Concern website: http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/Malaria.htm (2005, June 17). Malaria. Retrieved July 26, 2006, from WebMD website: http://www.webmd.com/hw/lab_tests/hw119259.aspFlynn, E., Shamos, S., and Vogel, L. Stanford University. Retrieved July 23, 2006, from the Malaria website: http://www.stanford.edu/class/humbio103/ParaSites2003/Malaria/malariahp.htmMalaria. (2006). In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved July 14, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MalariaMalaria & Malaria Vaccines. Retrieved July 24, 2006, from the Malaria Vaccine Initiative website: http://www.malariavaccine.org/malaria-and-vaccines.htm