Narendra Singh Lodhi

The Making of a Tropical Disease : Jungle Fever: Rethinking Human and Wild-primate Malarias Narendra Singh Lodhi

Jungle fever is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Americas. Malaria is prevalent in these regions because of the significant amounts of rainfall and consistent high temperatures; warm, consistent temperatures and high humidity, along with stagnant waters in which their larvae mature, provide mosquitoes with the environment needed for continuous breeding . The cause of the disease is a protozoan, discovered in 1880 by Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran; while he was working in the military hospital in Constantine, Algeria, he observed the parasites in a blood smear taken from a patient who had just died of malaria. The disease results from the multiplication of malaria parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases progressing to coma, and death.