What are the Symptoms of Malaria?

Q - What are the symptoms of Malaria?

A - When someone has malaria, (s)he can have one or more of a wide variety of symptoms. These symptoms vary from person to person depending on the immune status. People who have developed some immunity to malaria have mild symptoms while people who have NOT developed any form of immunity against malaria have more severe symptoms.

The commonest symptom seen in malaria is fever. The body temperature rises above 37.5 C (99.5 F). This fever has some features that distinguish it from other forms of fever. This is explained better below.

Other symptoms of malaria include, chills (a cold feeling inside even when you're actually hot outside), rigors (shivering), headaches, weakness of the body, body aches and pains, joint pains, bitter taste in the mouth, dizziness, loss of appetite, and lethargy.

Q - What is so special about the fever of malaria?

A - The characteristic feature is its intermittent nature. It comes and goes. It is NOT present all the time. The interval between the appearance and disappearance of the fever is called its periodicity. Periodicity varies depending on the infecting species of plasmodia.

• Plasmodium Falciparum fever - every day. It is described as aperiodic fever because many times, it has no definite periodicity.
• Plasmodium Vivax fever - every 48 hours or every other day (Tertian fever)
• Plasmodium Ovale fever - every 48 hours or every other day (Tertian fever)
• Plasmodium Malariae fever - every 72 hours or every 3rd day (Quartan fever)

Q - What are the symptoms of Malaria in children and non-immune people?

A - In addition to the above symptoms, children and non-immune people like travelers, suffer from some other symptoms including: abdominal pain and vomiting, hypothermia (low body temperature as opposed to the usual fever).

Q - How early do malaria symptoms appear?

A - The symptoms begin to appear after the incubation period elapses. The incubation period is the time interval between the introduction of the parasite into the human blood and the appearance of symptoms. This takes anywhere between 8 days to 30 days depending on the plasmodia species involved.

Q - What should I do if I have symptoms that suggest Malaria?

A - Once you have symptoms that are suggestive of malaria, and there's a chance that you've been exposed to mosquito bites in the recent past, you should go to the nearest health care center where a diagnostic test will be done to confirm if you have contracted malaria. If the test is positive, you will be given treatment with some anti-malaria medications.

Q - What are the symptoms of malaria in pregnant women?

A - The symptoms are the same as that seen in other people. However, they may be more severe because of the stress associated with pregnancy. Learn more about malaria in pregnancy

Created - October, 2006
Last Updated - August, 2009