Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Impacts of malaria on the environment
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Impacts of malaria on the environment
The Connection Between Malaria and Deforestation
Deforestation is the clearing of forests where the land is then converted for other uses. Deforestation happens globally on a massive scale as humans expand and cultivate the land. Examples of deforestation include the clearing of forests for cattle farming, mining and of course logging operations as well as a multitude of other uses. In the Amazon deforestation has been a problem for hundreds of years, ever since the Europeans ventured to the new world the Amazon has suffered from human settlement and the development of land. Because of these changes to the rainforest the ecosystem has been changed indefinitely.
Malaria is an infectious disease born from mosquitoes that is caused by parasitic protozoa that reside inside the mosquito. In most cases the disease is transmitted through getting bitten by an infected female anopheles mosquito. the protozoa is transferred to the victim from the mosquitoes saliva into their circulatory system. Malaria symptoms usually include headaches as well as fever. In dire cases this can progress into a coma or can be fatal (CDC 2014). Malaria is typically found in warmer regions of the world mostly tropical and sub tropical countries. The reason for this is the Anopheles mosquito thrives in higher temperatures. Malaria parasites grow and develop inside the mosquito and needs warmth to complete its growth before they are mature enough to be transmitted to humans.. Some examples of areas that malaria is present include South America, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (CDC 2014).
I believe that deforestations leads to an increase in the occurrence of malaria because of the increased survivability of the Anopheles darlingi mosquito in disturbed areas...
... middle of paper ...
... improved due to land cultivation, all leading to an increase in malaria cases because of the upsurge of the Anopheles darlingi population.
References
• Vittor, Amy Yomiko, et al. "The effect of deforestation on the human-biting rate of Anopheles darlingi, the primary vector of falciparum malaria in the Peruvian Amazon." The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 74.1 (2006): 3-11.
• Yasuoka, Junko, and Richard Levins. "Impact of deforestation and agricultural development on anopheline ecology and malaria epidemiology." American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 76.3 (2007): 450.
• Olson, Sarah H., et al. "Deforestation and malaria in Mancio Lima county, Brazil." Emerging infectious diseases 16.7 (2010): 1108.
• "Malaria." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 05 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Wright, David, Heather LaRocca, and Grant DeJongh. "Global Problems." The Amazonian Rainforest: Forest to Farmland? The University of Michigan, 2007. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
What kills more than two thousand children a day could potentially spread around the world. All of the most effective drugs used on this disease in the last evades have gradually been rendered useless by its ability to evolve and develop. It is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are spread to people through the bites of infected Mosquitos. The most deadly of this disease lies in Cambodia. This deadly and drug-resistant disease is malaria. The story of drug-resistant malaria in Cambodia is significant because people in other countries could be affected and must be aware of the fact that it is becoming immune to the most powerful drugs used to fight it.
Plasmodium Falciparum is the causative parasite of malignant malaria, it is the most deadly strain of the malaria viruses. P. Falciparum is a eukaryotic protozoan parasite that is spread through vector transmission using mosquitoes. The Anopheles mosquito family accounts for the majority of transmission because of their tendency to target humans (WHO, 2014). Malaria accounts for approximately five hundred thousand deaths each year in environments such as sub-Saharan Africa and other temperate areas where the life cycle of the mosquito is longer allowing the parasite to develop properly (WHO, 2014). Malaria usually infects children in these areas but also commonly spreads to travellers to these areas.
Malaria is a common infectious disease found mainly in the tropics but in rare circumstances can be found in temperate areas. Depending on the circumstances malaria can be either life threatening cause serious illness.
For several years, I have had an interest in virology and the spread and characteristics of various infectious diseases. Though it makes sense not to possibly induce a state of panic by informing individuals of illnesses that are not native to the area they live in and that they are not likely to contract, I have always liked to remain informed out of my own curiosity and interest. Thus, I have decided to write about malaria.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is in Danger of Being Destroyed" by Devadas Vittal. Rain Forests. HaiSong Harvey, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2002. Reprinted from Devadas Vittal, Introduction: What Is the Amazon Rainforest? Internet: http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/d/v/i/dvittal/amazon/intro.html, November 1999, by permission of the author. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010021212&mode=view
Philip, M., & William F. 2004, ‘Tropical Deforestation and Greenhouse-gas Emissions’, Ecological Applications, (no publication information), Volume 14, Issue 4, pp. 982–986, viewed 23 April 2010,
Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases are treated at home, one in twenty children die of the disease before they reach the age of five. Pregnant women are also more vulnerable to disease and in certain parts of Africa, they are four times as likely to contract the disease and only half as likely to survive it.
Countries such as Brazil and Indonesia have been greatly affected by deforestation with well over two million hectares of naturally forested land now rendered barren (See appendix 1).
In South America lies the largest and most wondrous rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. This 1.4 billion acre forest represents over half of the planets remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most bio-diverse tract of rainforest in the world. Ten percent of all known species on the planet are found in this rain forest, most of which have yet to be discovered. For the past century, the Amazon has been gradually decreasing in size due to agricultural expansion, ranching, infrastructure projects, energy exploration and illegal logging. At its current state, the Amazon is losing land equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year. The destruction of this forest releases 340 million tons of carbon per year according to the World Wildlife Foundation, or WWF, which in turn cause climate changes everywhere around the world. Undiscovered species can hold the key to curing a plethora of diseases, but if those species become extinct those keys are lost forever. If nothing is done to prevent this, the world’s treasure trove of bio-diversity will cease to exist, creating irreversible damage to not only the South American people but also the rest of the world.
Lindsey, Rebecca. "Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles." Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles. NASA, 30 Mar. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. .
Malaria, a serious sometimes fatal disease is caused by a parasite that infects a type of mosquito into the blood that feeds on humans. Malaria being one of the most severe public health problems worldwide, it is known to be one of the main causes of diseases and deaths in many developing countries. Malaria is a public health problem in more than 90 countries, inhibited by a total of 2,400 million plus people in some countries- estimating about 40% of the world’s population. In the malaria epidemic parts of the world, change in the risk of malaria can be the unintended results of economic activity or agricultural policy that changes the use of land; for example, the building of damn’s, irrigations schemes and even deforestation ("Malaria -
Scientists themselves are just beginning to understand the serious problems caused by deforestation. Deforestation occurs all over the world by all types of people. Peasant farmers even add to the problem because in most tropical countries the farmers are very poor only making between eight hundred and fifty four hundred dollars annually (NASA Facts). Therefore, they do not have enough money to buy what they need to live therefore they must farm to raise crops for food and to sell. In these poor countries the majority of people are peasant farmers this farming adds up to a great deal of deforestation. These farmers chop down a small area of trees for there plot to farm on and burn the tree trunks (NASA Facts). The combined number of farmers maintaining this process creates a great deal of clearing and burning of the land they need to cultivate, which results in land being treeless. Commercial logging is also another common form of deforestation. This commercial logging wipes out massive amounts of land sometimes deforesting several miles at...
Although subsistence activities have dominated agriculture-driven deforestation in the tropics to date, large-scale commercial activities are playing an increasingly significant role. In the Amazon, industrial-scale cattle ranching and soybean production for world markets are increasingly important causes of deforestation, and in Indonesia, the conversion of tropical forest to commercial palm tree plantations to produce bio-fuels for export is a major cause of deforestation on Borneo and Sumatra.
Allen, Julia C., and Douglas F. Barnes. "The Cause of Deforestation in Developing Countries." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 1985: 163-184. Print.