The prevention of malaria.

Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The prevention of malaria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    malaria, but only the females of some species of the genus Anopheles. Special training is required to distinquish the sex and the species of these mosquitoes; in the absence of this it is safer to consider them all as dangerous. A mosquito becomes infected by taking the blood of an infected human and can then transmit the disease to healthy individuals after a period of at least ten days. Human beings harbouring malaria parasites in their blood are a source of danger to the healthy. For this reason the permanent residents (“natives”) of a malarious locality are a source of infection to healthy troops and so, of course, are troops who have acquired malaria and who have not undergone an adequate course of treatment. Adequate courses are given under normal medical arrangements. (For any soldier to treat himself is contrary to M.E. Standing Orders for War, para. 1084, sub-para. 11). Bearing these simple facts in mind, it will be clear that our efforts to prevent the incidence of malaria among troops must be directed upon the following lines :— (a) The selection of healthy sites for camps. (b) The protection of troops against the bites of adult mosquitoes. (c) The destruction of adult mosquitoes and control of their aquatic stages and breeding places. (d) Suppressive treatment. (e) Curative treatment of those suffering from malaria and their isolation. Though ‘special organisations exist for the more technical methods of attack directed against the transmission of malaria it will be realised that, under active service conditions, there will be difficulties in the way of employing elaborate control measures over extensive areas. It follows, therefore, that the nearer troops are to the front line the less work of this kind can be done for them and the more they must rely on measures of personal protection carried out by themselves. 3. THE MALARIA SEASON AND MALARIOUS AREAS IN THE MIDDLE EAST (a) Malaria Season } In the Middle East this begins on April 1st and ends o November 30th, except in the Sudan and Eritrea, where it lasts the whole year.
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