malaria
/məˈlɛːrɪə
/- The parasite belongs to the genus Plasmodium (phylum Sporozoa) and is transmitted by female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles.
- The threats of malaria and diarrhoeal diseases will only further increase with the onset of rains.
- Preventable diseases such as malaria and diarrhea and cholera are a major killer.
Derivatives
malarial
/ adjective ...- Imported malaria was defined as malarial infection acquired in an endemic country and treated in France.
- The beneficial effects of hot baths and malarial fevers in syphilis were noted as early as the 15th century.
- Two tertian malarial species, Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale, may appear to be similar morphologically.
malarious
- The purpose of travel to malarious areas was reported for 495 U.S. civilians with imported malaria.
- Travellers who take day trips from a malaria free city to a malarious region may be at minimal risk if they return to the city before dusk.
- About 75% of the two countries is malarious, with 65% of the population at risk of infection.
Origin
Mid 18th century: from Italian, from mal'aria, contracted form of mala aria 'bad air'. The term originally denoted the unwholesome atmosphere caused by the exhalations of marshes, to which the disease was formerly attributed.
Before people understood that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, they attributed the disease to an unwholesome condition of the atmosphere in marshy districts. It was particularly prevalent in Italy, and especially near Rome. In a letter of 1740 the writer and statesman Horace Walpole wrote of ‘A horrid thing called the mal'aria, that comes to Rome every summer and kills one’. Italian mal'aria is a contraction of mala aria ‘bad air’. Malady (Middle English) comes from a similar source, being from Lain male ‘ill’ and habitus ‘having (as a condition)’.