Plasmodium ovale and other types of malaria

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News: A not very common type of malaria, Plasmodium ovale has been identified in a jawan in Kerala.

Facts:

• Malaria: It is caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito, if the mosquito itself is infected with a malarial parasite.
• Types: There are five kinds of malarial parasites — Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax (the commonest ones), Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium knowlesi.
• Is P Ovale different from other Parasites? P ovale is very similar to P vivax and the treatment modality is the same as it is for a person infected with P vivax.
• Prevalence of P Ovale: P ovale malaria is endemic to tropical Western Africa.It is relatively unusual outside of Africa and where found, comprises less than 1% of the isolates.
• Which Malarial Parasite is prevalent in India? In India, out of 1.57 lakh malaria cases in the high-burden states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh in 2019, 1.1 lakh cases(70%) were cases of falciparum malaria.

Note: According to the World Malaria Report 2020, cases of Malaria in India dropped from about 20 million in 2000 to about 5.6 million in 2019.