Malaria is an infectious blood disease caused by a parasite that is transmitted from one human to another by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria symptoms, which often appear about 9 to 14 days after the infectious mosquito bite, include fever, headache, vomiting and other flu-like symptoms. If drugs are not available or the parasites are resistant to them, the infection can lead to coma, life-threatening anemia, and death.
Malaria killed 655,000 people in 2010. Ninety-one percent of malaria-related deaths occur in Africa, the majority of whom are children under 5 years of age.
