Managing Malaria Using Nursing Practices

According to the CDC, United states was once a malaria-endemic country until 1951 when malaria was eliminated in the country. Currently, approximately 1,500 cases of malaria and five deaths are reported annually in the US mostly by returning travelers (Ramasamy, 2014). Globally, malaria is widespread in over 100 countries mostly the less developed tropical areas of Asia, Latin America, and Asia. It is estimated that malaria kills about 1 million people annually in Africa alone. There are about 300 to 500 million cases of malaria reported annually and approximately 90 percent of these cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Although malaria is treatable and preventable, it still causes significant mortality and morbidity with the highest number of cases being reported in resource poor-regions and amongst young children.
The contributing factors for malaria are mostly dictated by social and economic reasons. In most instances of malaria infection, the people infected are mainly poor rural populations who live in malaria endemic regions since they cannot afford proper housing and bed nets that can protect them from exposure. The lack of education is also a contributing factor when it comes to the spread of malaria. People lack the knowledge to recognize and treat malaria correctly. Cultural beliefs have also played a key role as people will use traditional ineffective methods for treating the disease. Human activities that create breeding grounds for the larvae are also contributors to the spread of malaria. War, voluntary and forced migrations have also been noted to be contributors as people are forced to move to areas with high malaria transmission.
Malaria is a preventable and curable disease. Individuals who live in areas that are prone to malaria should protect themselves by wearing protective clothing, using insect repellants, and sleeping under treated nets. The World Health Organization (WHO) field trials have indicated that insecticide treated curtains and bed nets have a high potential for reducing childhood mortality from 15 percent to 35 percent. However, despite this proven efficacy, there are fewer than 2 percent of African children who sleep under treated bed nets. Individuals are also encouraged to ensure that there is no stagnant water close to their homesteads in order to eliminate the breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
The incubation period for malaria is between 7 to 18 days from the day of infection and this is depending on the parasite that infected an individual. However, there have been cases of individuals taking almost a year before they develop any symptoms (Pimenta et al., 2015). The initial malaria symptoms are flu-like and they include high temperature, sweats, headache, vomiting, and chills. The malaria symptoms are normally mild and it is not easy to identify them as malaria. There are some types of malaria that cause fever in 48-hour cycles. Other malaria symptoms are diarrhea, muscle pains, and generally feeling unwell.
Laboratory test must be carried out in order to get a definitive diagnosis for malaria. Clinical diagnosis can be made based on the individual’s symptoms and physical examination findings. However, the physical findings should always be confirmed with a laboratory test. Malaria parasites can be identified by examining a patient's blood under the microscope. There are also rapid diagnostic tests that provide results in 2-15 minutes. They are a useful alternative to the microscopic testing especially in situations where such tests cannot be carried out immediately. All in all, the early and accurate diagnosis of malaria is vital to ensure there is rapid and effective disease management.
Increasing access to health care and improving health outcomes in the rural and remote areas is one of the ways to ensure that malaria is easily prevented and treated. Since the high cases of malaria occur in resource-poor regions, there is need to have adequate management strategies to ensure that individuals who have the symptoms of malaria are tested and if confirmed given adequate treatment and medication. The nursing role should not be treating, but also preventing the spread of the disease. It is this factor that nurses should be encouraged to visit and educate communities on the effects of malaria and how they can prevent malaria. Communities should also be encouraged to visit clinics when they have the early symptoms of malaria to ensure they receive proper treatment before the disease becomes deadly.
There are four major classes of drugs that are used for the treatment of malaria. The drugs are quinoline-related compounds, artemisinin derivatives, antimicrobials, and antifolates (Zurovac et al., 2014). There is no single drug that has been able to eradicate all forms of the parasites life cycle. Therefore, 1 or more classes of the drugs are administered at the same time in order to combat malaria. The treatment regimen is mostly dependent on the geographic location where infection took place and the severity of the disease. There have been indications that the malaria parasite has become immune to quinine, which is mainly administered in rural poor areas and there is need to have a more effective drug to combat the disease.
It is recommended that follow up care be offered after treatment of malaria is completed. This is to ensure that the treatment was successful and there are no symptoms of malaria in the patient. There have been numerous reported cases of treatment failure and it is for this reason that follow up care should be offered. If initial treatment fails, then a second line of treatment should be offered.
In conclusion, it is clear that malaria is a deadly disease that can be prevented and treated if proper guidelines are followed. Education of individuals has been shown to be effective in reducing cases of malaria. With proper treatment, malaria can be managed and communities taught on methodologies of preventing the disease. However, there is still need to increase the resources being offered especially to the rural poor communities to increase their sensitization and knowledge of the disease.


References
Pimenta, P. F., Orfano, A. S., Bahia, A. C., Duarte, A. P., Ríos-Velásquez, C. M., Melo, F. F., . . . Villegas, L. M. (2015). An overview of malaria transmission from the perspective of Amazon Anopheles vectors. Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 110(1), 23-47.
Ramasamy, R. (2014). Zoonotic malaria–global overview and research and policy needs. Frontiers in public health, 2.
Zurovac, D., Githinji, S., Memusi, D., Kigen, S., Machini, B., Muturi, A., . . . Nyandigisi, A. (2014). Major improvements in the quality of malaria case-management under the “test and treat” policy in Kenya. PLoS ONE, 9(3), e92782.