Little Monsters by Albert Marrin

Author:Albert Marrin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2011-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

Caught in the act! Malaria daughter cells breaking out of a red blood cell.

Fighting malaria has become a race against time. It is a race in which humans must run faster and faster just to stay where they are. This is partly because Anopheles mosquitoes are born survivors. While insecticides kill countless mosquitoes, they never kill them all. The survivors then pass their genes to the next generation, along with immunity to certain insecticides. Thus, scientists must always seek new chemicals to overcome the mosquitoes’ newly gained immunity. Yet these new chemicals may have unpleasant, perhaps even dangerous side effects of their own.

It is the same with Plasmodium falciparum. Like mosquitoes and insecticides, sooner or later these protozoa will develop resistance to the drugs in use today.

Global warming, the gradual rise in temperatures across our planet, threatens humanity in a special way. Some scientists believe the temperature rise noted over the last century is as normal and natural as the global cooling that happened earlier in our Earth’s history. Other scientists think people are causing global warming. They say the gases released by human inventions such as automobile engines and coal-burning power plants trap heat in the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise. Global warming carries health dangers, whatever its cause. Warming can change weather patterns, bringing more humidity, rainfall, and flooding. These in turn could lead to an increase in mosquitoes of all species. Increasing the range of malaria-bearing Anopheles mosquitoes would spread malaria farther, into new regions. Thus, Plasmodium falciparum may be on the verge of an outbreak that will threaten humanity as never before.

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