Malaria is an acute febrile illness. In a non-immune individual, symptoms usually appear 10–15 days after the infective mosquito bite. The first symptoms – fever, headache, and chills – may be mild and difficult to recognize as malaria.Symptoms include: nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. May also cause anaemia and jaundice due to the extensive loss of red blood cells (hence yellow tinge of skin and eyes). If one is not treated within 24 hours, the infection may become severe and lead to kidney failure, seizures, mental confusion, coma, and worst case scenario, death
Mortality: is higher in adults compared with children for severe malaria However, children under the age of 5 contribute to the highest number of deaths due to malaria globally
Affects children during the key period of brain development, maturational changes in the cerebral vasculature may account for some of the differences in disease presentation and outcome between children and adults.
Prominent differences between children and adults include:
- lower mortality
- more frequent seizures and more commonly reported neurocognitive sequelae
- higher rates of associated anemia
- lower rates of renal dysfunction
- retinal vessel changes
- more frequent ring haemorrhages and inflammatory cell accumulation in the paediatric brain microvasculature.