What is Malaria?

Origin of Malaria The word malaria originates from the Italian words mal and aria meaning "bad air." The ancient Romans believed that the disease was due to the vapors emanating from the swamps around Rome where malaria had raged for centuries. The deadliest of all human malarias, Plasmodium falciparum, has been in existence for millennia. But its incidence is believed to have exploded since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. Suddenly, age-old trees were felled and vast tracts of forests were cleared for agriculture --providing sunlight and standing water for the Anopheles mosquito vector to exploit. In 1949, Italian researchers pointed out the strong geographic correlation between the high incidence of thalassemia and endemic falciparum malaria in certain areas of Italy. Thalassemia is a hemoglobin disorder characterized by varying degrees of anemia. People that are heterozygous (people who carry the trait) for thalassemia may be asymptomatic or suffer from only mild to moderate anemia. But people who are homozygous (individuals with full blown disease) experience severe anemia and early death without medical treatment. The Malaria Hypothesis To explain the high incidence of thalassemia in malarious regions in the Mediterranean despite its lethality in homozygous state, an English-born biologist and geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane, proposed what later became known as the "Malaria Hypothesis." Essentially, Haldane posited that while homozygotes succumbed to the complications of thalassemia or to the scourge of malaria, the heterozygotes however not just had mild symptoms but could also be resilient to falciparum malaria itself, which had exacted an extremely high death toll in southern Europe up till the end of World War II. And by natural selection, this selective advantage must have favored the persistence of the thalassemia gene in the malaria-endemic parts of the Mediterranean. However, since malaria had been eliminated in the Mediterranean countries after World War II, the Malaria Hypothesis could not be readily confirmed among carriers of the thalassemia gene. It wasn't until four years later when a real systematic inquiry into the hypothesis was carried out. However, this time, it was in association with another hemoglobin disorder: sickle cell disease. In 1953, an English physician, Dr. Anthony Allison, performed in-depth studies of the relationship between sickle cell disease and malaria in East Africa. He discovered that the incidence of parasitemia in youngsters with the sickle cell trait was significantly lower than a comparable group without the trait. He further noted that the abnormal red blood cells of those with the trait were less easily parasitized by Plasmodium falciparum than were normal red cells.

In 1954, Dr. Allison published "Protection afforded by sickle cell trait against subtertian malarial infection" in the British Medical Journal. His results thus gave further credence to the Malaria Hypothesis with respect to the sickle gene --- that despite the fact that the homozygous state meant high morbidity and mortality, individuals with sickle trait appeared to possess a selective advantage and innate protection against a vicious global killer---thus illustrating the role of natural selection and survival of the fittest in ensuring the sickle gene's persistence in the gene pool, specifically in regions where malaria are largely present. Learn more about the burden of malaria by visiting http://www.thefinalrace.net/theburdenofmalaria.html