Malaria historical perspective
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [2]
Overview
The symptoms of malaria, one of the oldest known infections, were initially believed to be caused by noxious elements.[1] It was not until 1880 when Charles Louis Alphone Laveran discovered the Plasmodium parasite in blood smears of patients with malaria.[2] The role of mosquitos in the transmission of malaria to humans was discovered a few years later. Consequently, the entire life cycle of the Plasmodium parasite remained enigmatic until 1982.[3] Although malaria has always been treated using quinine, an alkaloid derived from barks of cinchona, the first synthetic quinine was produced in 1948.[4][5] In 2014, the first candidate for anti-malarial vaccine was developed.
Historical Perspective
Malaria is one of the oldest discovered global diseases that continue to infect hundreds of million people worldwide. It has frequently been regarded as the most significant disease over the past 3 thousand years. The malarial syndrome has been described since antiquity in ancient China, India, Greece, and Egypt.[1] Hippocrates, Homer, and other Greek and Roman physicians often referred to malaria as the “marsh fever”, “intermittent fever”, and “ague”.[1][6] The name “malaria” was only coined in the mid eighteenth century, derived from two Latin words that collectively mean “bad air”.[7]
While originally believed to be an airborne noxious element or miasma from swamps, it was not until 1880 when Charles Louis Alphone Laveran, a French military physician, discovered that malaria is caused by an infectious parasite when he microscopically examined blood smears of 44 malaria patients and “noticed among the red corpuscles elements that seemed to be parasites”.[2] He was eventually rewarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his overall research on malaria.[1] In 1883, King and colleagues hypothesized that malarial transmission is via a mosquito.[7] Fourteen years later in 1897, Sir Ronald Ross, an Indian-born British bacteriologist, isolated malarial oocysts in Anopheles mosquitos and was finally able to prove that the culcine mosquito is the malarial vector for avian malaria.[8] Consequently, he also won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his research on malarial transmission and life cycle.[7] Ross’s discovery was then followed by a similar discovery one year later for Anopheles mosquito and human malaria by Italian researchers Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli, Camillo Golgi, and Ettore Marchiafava.[1]
In 1948, Henry Shortt and Cyril Garnham unveiled the cryptic tissue phase, demonstrating that malaria first develops in the liver and enters the blood stream thereafter.[9] Finally, Wojciech Krotoski showed in 1982 that malaria has a dormant exoerythrocytic stage in the liver, explaining the long latency period observed between infection and appearance in the bloodstream in specific strains.[3]
Robert Woodward and William vonEggers Doering first developed the total synthesis of quinine in 1944 following Paul Rabe and Karl Kindler’s report on converting d-quinotoxine into quinine in 1918.[4][5] Originally, quinine is an alkaloid derived from barks of cinchona and Remijia tree species that was proven to be effective in the treatment of malaria. With Woodward and Doering’s discovery of the first artificial quinine, the first synthetic pharmacologic agent to treat malaria was produced.[5]
With the understanding of malaria's mode of transmission and mechanisms of disease, mosquito control and prompt diagnosis and treatment allowed most European countries to eliminate malaria before the second World War.[10] In 1955, the Global Malaria Eradication Programme was established in an effort to control and eliminate malaria and to reduce the malarial burden in regions of moderate prevalence outside tropical Africa. The financial and expertise coverage to fight malaria further expanded to include global efforts, such as "Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB, and Malaria", "U.S. President's Malaria Initiative", and "World Bank's Booster Programme".[10] In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a multibillion-dollar initiative to eradicate malaria, with the help of international donors.[11]
In 2005, PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a non-profit organization, collaborated with Glaxosmithkline, to develop an anti-malarial vaccine with a grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The new vaccine has been administered alongside other infant vaccines through the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). In 2011, the first co-primary end point from the phase 3 trial of RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine was published, followed by a second co-primary end point in 2012.[12] The vaccine was used to protect against clinical and severe malaria in young infants. In July 2014, Glaxosmithkline applied for approval of the world's first anti-malarial vaccine. Other similar vaccines are currently being developed, but still require further validation of their clinical efficacy.
Malaria in the United States
- Malaria was eliminated from the United States in the early 1950's.[13]
- Between 1957 and 2011, in the United States, 63 outbreaks of locally transmitted mosquito-borne malaria have occurred; in such outbreaks, local mosquitoes become infected by biting persons carrying malaria parasites (acquired in endemic areas) and then transmit malaria to local residents.[13]
- During 1963-2011, 97 cases of transfusion-transmitted malaria were reported in the United States; approximately two thirds of these cases could have been prevented if the implicated donors had been deferred according to established guidelines.[13]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cox FE (2010). "History of the discovery of the malaria parasites and their vectors". Parasit Vectors. 3 (1): 5. doi:10.1186/1756-3305-3-5. PMC 2825508. PMID 20205846.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Laveran CL (1982). "Classics in infectious diseases: A newly discovered parasite in the blood of patients suffering from malaria. Parasitic etiology of attacks of malaria: Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (1845-1922)". Rev Infect Dis. 4 (4): 908–11. PMID 6750753.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Krotoski WA, Collins WE, Bray RS, Garnham PC, Cogswell FB, Gwadz RW; et al. (1982). "Demonstration of hypnozoites in sporozoite-transmitted Plasmodium vivax infection". Am J Trop Med Hyg. 31 (6): 1291–3. PMID 6816080.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Seeman JI (2007). "The Woodward-Doering/Rabe-Kindler total synthesis of quinine: setting the record straight". Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 46 (9): 1378–413. doi:10.1002/anie.200601551. PMID 17294412.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Kaufman TS, Rúveda EA (2005). "The quest for quinine: those who won the battles and those who won the war". Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 44 (6): 854–85. doi:10.1002/anie.200400663. PMID 15669029.
- ↑ Bruce-Chwatt LJ (1981). "Alphonse Laveran's discovery 100 years ago and today's global fight against malaria". J R Soc Med. 74 (7): 531–6. PMC 1439072. PMID 7021827.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Dutta HM, Dutt AK (1978). "Malarial ecology: a global perspective". Soc Sci Med. 12 (2D): 69–84. PMID 81525.
- ↑ Ross R (1897). "Observations on a Condition Necessary to the Transformation of the Malaria Crescent". Br Med J. 1 (1883): 251–5. PMC 2432879. PMID 20756775.
- ↑ SHORTT HE, GARNHAM PC (1948). "Pre-erythrocytic stage in mammalian malaria parasites". Nature. 161 (4082): 126. PMID 18900752.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Mendis K, Rietveld A, Warsame M, Bosman A, Greenwood B, Wernsdorfer WH (2009). "From malaria control to eradication: The WHO perspective". Trop Med Int Health. 14 (7): 802–9. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3156.2009.02287.x. PMID 19497083.
- ↑ Okie S (2008). "A new attack on malaria". N Engl J Med. 358 (23): 2425–8. doi:10.1056/NEJMp0803483. PMID 18525039.
- ↑ RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership. Agnandji ST, Lell B, Fernandes JF, Abossolo BP, Methogo BG; et al. (2012). "A phase 3 trial of RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine in African infants". N Engl J Med. 367 (24): 2284–95. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1208394. PMID 23136909.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Malaria Facts. CDC.gov accessed on 07/24/2014 [1]