Talk:Malaria

Edit protected

Kindly add to the Research chapter, probably best under the Other sub heading:

The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute has made available a simulator program for studying malaria epidemiology and the impacts of interventions against malaria.

regards 2001:14BA:80D2:6F00:0:0:0:1EC (talk) 09:31, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

References

 Partly done Changed reference to standard reference. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 23:20, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

 Undone GitHub isn't reliable. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 00:07, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

−

(ec) Undone The cited ref here is a GitHub repository, and thus a primary source and not suitable for use a reference in this context. So I've undone this. Yilloslime (talk) 00:09, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Text

This source "Non lethal pathogenic diseases: changing the paradigm from a zero sum game to a symbiotic relationship, the case of malaria." does not appear to be pubmed indexed. Also person who added it appears to have a COI. And were does it say it is CC BY? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

"The Plasmodium parasite has a long human co-evolutionary history. It may hence be reasonably expected to be more genetically diverse and thus have a greater propensity to create resistant variants in response to vaccine deployment. Conversely, its human hosts would be expected to generate Darwinian balanced polymorphism - such as Sickle Cell Anemia - against parasite invasion that mitigate damage to both host and parasite alike. Since the blood stage is the only stage in the parasite life cycle that causes disease, an evolutionary symbiotic drug design strategy has been proposed that prevents or decreases the asexual reproductive cycle in the red blood cells without exerting significant selective pressure on either the Gametocytes or the transmission rates of the parasite. Malaria may be best treated as a manageable disease associated with asymptomatic (made so by drugs that selectively target the asexual stages of the parasite without interfering with transmission) in vivo sexual parasite load. There would be negligible Evolutionary pressure on the parasite to evolve resistance to such drugs that work with - rather then against - natural selection"

Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2019

Each year, approximately 210 million people are infected with malaria, and about 440,000 people die from the disease. Most of the people who die from the disease are young children in Africa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IBRAHIM K. YUSUF (talk • contribs) 19:13, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Study in Lancet

It was mentioned on the news this morning (September 9 2019) that a study in The Lancet had said malaria could be eliminated in a generation. Could this be mentioned in the article? Vorbee (talk) 06:38, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes. Just be sure to comply with WP:UNDUE and other relevant policies. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 01:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• It's more of a campaign than a scientific consensus, but it's intriguing. A bit news-ish. — soupvector (talk) 02:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for link. From the first few pages, it seems that this commission came up with a plan to eradicate malaria by 2050, but they don't yet know if anyone is actually going to carry out the plan. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 22:58, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

With the situation in Venezuela, unlikely. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Grillet ME, Hernández-Villena JV, Llewellyn MS, et al. (May 2019). "Venezuela's humanitarian crisis, resurgence of vector-borne diseases, and implications for spillover in the region". Lancet Infect Dis (Review). 19 (5): e149–e161. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30757-6. PMID 30799251.

Significant because of the scale of the Crisis in Venezuela and the likelihood of diseases crossing borders via emigration. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit to add "citation needed"

It's unclear whether the sentence under Pathophysiology section that reads "Some P. vivax sporozoites do not immediately develop into exoerythrocytic-phase merozoites, but instead, produce hypnozoites that remain dormant for periods ranging from several months (7–10 months is typical) to several years. " is supported by the citations in its following sentences. Thus the claim that "...dormant for periods ranging from several months (7-10 months) to several years." seems to require a citation, and ideally more specificity around "several years" (how many? what study has found an upper range?).

I request someone confirm the existing citations work for that claim and give it the same citation link, or that a "citation needed" flag get added to that sentence.

Earthonaut (talk) 01:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. I've given that sentence the same citation link - the source does support that statement. Re duration: "Sometimes the latency could be as long as one year, and there were well documented, but apparently unusual, cases reported of latencies greater than two years." Wantok (toktok) 07:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Hydroxychloroquine

Shouldn't there be some mention in this article about the use of Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for malaria, since that is its primary use? Stevenmitchell (talk) 04:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

We previously had references to Hydroxychloroquine in this article, but in case you aren't aware, Donald Trump suggested that the anti-viral properties of HCQ might be useful against COVID-19. Due to this substantially problematic suggestion, we're working diligently to remove all references of this medication from all wikipedia articles, regardless of Wikipedia:Notability . e.g., CDC articles like this CDC informatic are now deprecated, and borderline malinformation. Calebb (talk) 05:49, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Calebb: Having looked at your contributions [1], thankfully, I can't see any evidence of your involvement in such stupidity. Graham Beards (talk) 14:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@Calebb and Stevenmitchell: Am I understanding correctly that a group of volunteer Wikipedia editors have decided that because Donald Trump promoted Hydroxychloroquine when it was contraindicated, you are now out trumping Trump by removing all references to Hydroxychloroquine, even when it's appropriate?

I agree with User:Stevenmitchell: If the CDC is still recommending Hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic or treatment for malaria, it should be mentioned in this article.

Where is it documented that a CDC publication is deprecated? How can learn more about this? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:18, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Calebb:Hydroxychloroquine should not be deprecated or removed from this article, or even the associated Covid-19 articles. It is a viable medication for Malaria that is used in much of the world. While I am anti-Trump and have been since he first got famous for his bigotry back in the 1970s, Hydroxychloroquine should be included in both articles, undoubtedly for different reasons. Here it should be mentioned for its international use to treat Malaria, and in the Covid-19-related articles, it should be mentioned for the controversies surrounding its use, emanating from Donald Trump and other medical practitioners' adoption, as long as its appropriately referenced and mentioned for its controversial Covid-19 use. Controversies associated with particular topics, are a standard inclusion in Wikipedia articles. No mention or information at all on this topic, as an absence, invites comments from anonymous contributors originating from outside of Wikipedia, to supplement this void in a likely irresponsible manner. If the topic of Hydroxychloroquine is introduced in its appropriate contexts for each topic of interest, then it will be much easier to maintain a neutral position on any editorial additions of Hydroxychloroquine to affiliated articles... Stevenmitchell (talk) 23:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Where is there a consensus that all references to hydroxychloroquine should be removed from this article? HCQ is still a viable treatment for this indication. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink, Calebb, and Stevenmitchell: Can someone who knows this topic better than I do please add (or restore) appropriate references to Hydroxychloroquine? This article should contain such. If others want to remove such references, they need to explain why. DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:22, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Would be happy to do so; I will try and find time this weekend (currently cramming for an exam on Friday). If anybody else has time before then, be my guest — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:48, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Transmission of malaria

The article reasonably lacks information regarding transmission of the disease. Though malaria is a mosquito-borne disease, it can obviously be transmitted via blood transfusion. The parasites responsible, albeit P. falciparum being the most common, may also be transmitted across the placenta. Furthermore, transmissions by organ transplantation have also been reported. Very few things have been told about these transmissions. A detailed discussion about these transmissions may be added together with the vector transmission by making a seperate section named as 'Disease transmission' or whatsoever.--A doxadius (talk) 00:16, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Remove "further reading" list?

Does anyone object if I remove the "further reading" list? I think it's an arbitrary listing of publications, including a very old one. Surely if they are important they should rather be used as in-line citations. EMsmile (talk) 11:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Move the section about climate change?

The section about climate change impacts is important but I am not sure if it should be under "Cause". It's not that climate change is the root cause, it's just that it means the mosquitos responsible for malaria are becoming more common in areas where they weren't before. So I am wondering if it should be moved to "Epidemiology" rather, and become a sub-section there. Thoughts? - Also, could anyone interested in the topic please check if we have the right level of detail here versus the details available in Climate change and infectious diseases#Malaria. Do we need more or less? That other article could also do with improvements in case anyone is interesting in this topic. EMsmile (talk) 11:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I have moved the climate change section to "epidemiology" now. EMsmile (talk) 01:42, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

First effective treatment for malaria came from ...?

I perceive an inconsistency in the section of this article on History: It says, 'The first effective treatment for malaria came from the bark of cinchona tree, which contains quinine. This tree grows on the slopes of the Andes, mainly in Peru. The indigenous peoples of Peru made a tincture of cinchona to control fever. Its effectiveness against malaria was found and the Jesuits introduced the treatment to Europe around 1640 ... . The medicinal value of Artemisia annua has been used by Chinese herbalists in traditional Chinese medicines for 2,000 years. In 1596, Li Shizhen recommended tea made from qinghao specifically to treat malaria symptoms in his "Compendium of Materia Medica".'

In particular, this passage suggests that Artemisia annua (which does NOT contain quinine) may have been used to control malaria in China before a tincture of cinchona was used by the indigenous peoples of Peru. I don't know enough to fix this problem, but this analysis suggests an opportunity to improve this article. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

images?

@Quisqualis: @Rahulbioinfowiki:

Two questions regarding images:

1. The "Child with malaria in Ethiopia" image a little over half way through the article is the same as the still displayed with the "Video summary (script)" at the end of the lede. Maybe the later image should be deleted and the "Video summary (script)" should be modified to be more specific?

3D binding poses of PfLDH with molecules CQ, 3j, and 4m. The LLE and LE values are shown as thumbs indicating medium efficiency, medium high , medium low, and very low efficiency <ref name="pmid31903852"/>

2. Is there a reason File:PFLDH.png was deleted? Probably: It looks a little too cartoonish and illustrates things not mentioned in the text. However, I felt need to ask to make sure it wasn't deleted by accident.

Thanks for all you do to help educate the entirety of humanity, DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

User:DavidMCEddy, I agree with #1. The second photo was not only cartoonish, but a copyright violation improperly uploaded to Commons. It should be deleted from there soon.--Quisqualis (talk) 19:15, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

History related to the origin of Plasmodium falciparum

The history section currently reads as follows:

Although the parasite responsible for P. falciparum malaria has been in existence for 50,000–100,000 years, the population size of the parasite did not increase until about 10,000 years ago, concurrently with advances in agriculture.

On the other hand, in the article Plasmodium falciparum, we have

P. falciparum is now generally accepted to have evolved from Laverania (a subgenus of Plasmodium found in apes) species present in gorilla in Western Africa. Genetic diversity indicates that the human protozoan emerged around 10,000 years ago.

Which of these is correct? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 01:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Unreliable sourcing

I noticed a few sentences with phrasing that struck me as odd for Wikipedia standards; notably, "However, most of the P. vivax replicating merozoite biomass is now (since 2021) known to be hidden in the spleen and bone marrow (perhaps elsewhere too), thereby supporting the astute, long-standing (since 2011) but previously ignored theory that non-circulating merozoites are the source many P. vivax malarial recurrences (see “Recurrent malaria” section below)." and "But doing this is not necessarily correct." After a little bit of digging it seems like the author of these sentences, IdleMan, has been making many edits with citations to journal publications by a "Miles B Markus."

Objectively, Markus's journal articles are not cited by other authors discussing relevant topics, and a good portion of Markus's references are to his own earlier publications. Additionally, I could not find other sources that corroborated most claims that were inserted by IdleMan.

Subjectively, cursory reads of Markus's articles and the edits made by Idleman have the same "voice," as well as what I would call a "compulsion to correct and prevent incorrect terminology usage." A good portion of IdleMan's edit seem to have been in good faith with the intent to make certain complex topics regarding malaria less vague, but were redundant at best and damaging to clarity at worst. That being said, certain edits included especially self-congratulatory language or passive aggressive comments directed to the malaria research community at large for failure to recognize the (supposed) significance of Miles B. Markus's research.

Upon further investigation similar edits have been made on related pages like Plasmodium vivax and Tafenoquine. I am going to remove edits made by IdleMan that cite journal articles by Markus, and fix certain other grammatical changes. I will be doing this both on this article and other articles edited by IdleMan, but I won't blindly revert all edits they have made. Bennychloroplast (talk) 21:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

COMMENT FROM IDLEMAN: I understand what the editor means and he/she has a good point(s). One will not at this stage necessarily find corroborating publications, because some cutting-edge stuff is involved. But I am going to add a couple of such citations, nevertheless, to ameliorate the incorrect "redundant at best" and "unreliable sourcing", etc., impressions. At the same time, I'll modify some of the language. Wait for it. Thank you. P.S.: A hot topic in malariology today is the habitual poor citing since 1980 (because of what some authors did then) of e.g. the fact that Markus is the person who coined the standard malaria-related term "hypnozoite". And so on. Long story. This largely explains the editor's accurate observation: "Objectively, ... are not cited by other authors ...". — Preceding unsigned comment added by IdleMan (talk • contribs) 00:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

SECOND COMMENT FROM IDLEMAN: I see that edits have already been made and described as "Unsupported claims and unclear wording removed". However, almost all the claims were accompanied by citations (I was planning to add at least two more). The upshot is that the article is now technically out of date in a few highly topical (in 2023) and cutting-edge respects (that are progressively being agreed with in the field concerned), making it somewhat pedestrian in relation to these paradigm-shifting aspects. Technical errors have been introduced via one or two of the deletions, which seem to have been aimed at removing particular references (it is nobody's fault that the author happens to be the only person so far to have come up with certain things; he has been described as "pioneering", although also as a "heretic"!), without consideration of the consequences. E.g. one can't simplistically say, in 2023, that inoculated sporozoites go from the bloodstream to the liver. Anyway, I can't fix things without also reverting some wording changes here and there that I agree with. Would then have to find those places again to put back that agreed-with wording. Will think about what to do now (if anything) to salvage the article in the important respects concerned. Perhaps I'll undo the changes and then, when time permits, go and look for the particular latest edits concerned and re-insert them. IdleMan (talk) 02:53, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

THIRD COMMENT: @ bennychloroplast wrote above that "... journal articles are not cited by other authors ...". To put this in perspective, I have checked Google Scholar. The number of citations for three of the references that @ bennychloroplast has deleted are currently: 238 since late 2013 for the "Nature Reviews Microbiology" paper; 76 since 2011 for the "Journal of the History of Biology" paper; and 37 since 2018 for a paper in "Parasitology". These figures will include any self-citations, which malariologists characteristically often like doing (in this instance an author with inter alia a PhD from Imperial College London).IdleMan (talk) 11:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Great to see this article being worked on! Would it be possible to share the proposed citations here on the talk page? I may have time to look at them this week. JenOttawa (talk) 12:38, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. I'll add two or three of them here, for interest. Watch this space! IdleMan (talk) 14:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Here are the promised references. The significance of the first and second references is reflected in the 3rd reference (an “Editor’s Choice” paper in a Special Issue of the journal). But these references are no longer relevant to the Wiki “Malaria” article because of editor Bennychloroplast’s text deletions.

Kho, S. et al. 2021. Hidden biomass of intact malaria parasites in the human spleen. New England Journal of Medicine 384: 2067–2069. PMID: 34042394. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2023884

Obaldia, N. 3rd et al. 2018. Bone marrow is a major parasite reservoir in Plasmodium vivax infection. mBio 9: e00625-18. PMID: 29739900. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00625-18

Markus, M.B. 2023. Putative contribution of 8-aminoquinolines to preventing recrudescence of malaria. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease 8: 278. PMID: 37235326. https://doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed8050278 IdleMan (talk) 16:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

As regards the 1 + 2 = 3 citations that were added to the "Malaria" story less than 24 hours ago, note that references which are more authoritative than those in the 3 contexts concerned do not exist. IdleMan (talk) 19:05, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Looking at them from a WP:MEDRS/WP:RS perspective, Kho et al 2021 is a 'Letter to the editor', Obaldia et al 2018 is a primary research study both in vivo in a monkey model and using P. vivax isolates from their previous work to perform microarray analysis and ortholog mapping, and Markus 2023 is a literature review published in Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. I do not have experience editing Wikipedia in micro/molecular biology fields. For medical claims we follow MEDRS so most of these sources could not back a medical claim, for example, efficacy of treatment approach. For sharing background on microbiology/genetics of the organism, I am not sure what to recommend. I would tend to create a new section in the Research subheading if uncertain and go from there. Sorry that I can not be more helpful!!! I think it also depends on what evidence is being added from these types of references and if other stronger sources exist.JenOttawa (talk) 20:38, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I have confused the issue. Apologies. I wasn't referring in my post above to the 3 references I gave above. I was referring to the 3 references I have added to the main Malaria article (ref. nos 37, 43 & 130 in the current version). But on the subject of the refs you discuss above, the Markus 2023 one is unique. Nobody else has suggested what it is suggesting. The last sentence in the conclusion states: "Evidence one way or the other should soon be forthcoming ...". Let's wait and see. As for Kho et al., there is a much more detailed Kho et al. paper in PLoS Medicine (ref. 36 in the abovementioned Markus paper). And as regards Obaldia et al., who started the ball rolling for bone marrow, there is a human version, so to speak, in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (ref. 37 in the Markus paper). But the Kho/Obaldia/Etc. matters aren't relevant to the Wiki Malaria story anymore because Bennychloroplast deleted the context. Bennychloroplast had a couple of valid points, so I haven't put the context back. That could perhaps happen later, after the science has become clearer (after more research has been carried out). At present, things might not be readily comprehensible to the uninitiated. IdleMan (talk) 01:13, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

P.S.: Authors of ref. 37 in the current version of the Wiki Malaria article (not Markus's ref. 37 mentioned above) are the researchers who actually made the malaria parasites-in-skin discoveries (plural). I.e. that ref. 37 is not a review by "secondary" people. This is why it is highly authoritative. The article was published in a very good journal (2023 Impact Factor = 78.297). IdleMan (talk) 01:49, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Death Toll of Malaria throughout History

In the history section, immediately before the list of names of malaria, is this sentence: "In total, malaria may have killed 50-60 billion people throughout history, or about half of all humans that have ever lived." Its only cited source is an article (not a paper) on nature.com, which itself doesn't cite a source for this claim. Also, the source only says "Malaria may have killed half of all the people that ever lived." without giving an estimate for the number of deaths. Is there a better source for this claim? If there isn't, does it make sense to add [citation needed]? Irgendwhy (talk) 18:31, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your concern and have removed this sentence and ref now: In total, malaria may have killed 50-60 billion people throughout history, or about half of all humans that have ever lived. EMsmile (talk) 07:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

References

Suggestion to move out some of the content about the vaccine

My suggestion is to move some of the content that is currently under the malaria vaccine section (which I have just bundled together in this section: Malaria#Research on malaria vaccines to the article malaria vaccine. We could also ensure the lead of malaria vaccine ensure is good and then transcribe it back to here with the excerpt tool. This way, when there is new info about the vaccine, we only have to update this info in one article, not two. Thoughts? Pinging User:Whywhenwhohow and User:Merxistan. EMsmile (talk) 07:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

does climate change increase the risk of malaria?

The content here about how climate change affects the spread of malaria seems to be a bit more cautious than the content here: Climate change and infectious diseases#Malaria. Which one is more up to date? If it's the one in the climate change article then perhaps it would be better to bring back that content by way of an excerpt. EMsmile (talk) 16:07, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Microbiology of College Life

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2024 and 11 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): PirkeyH, Ully16 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jason.DeLaCruz1313 (talk) 00:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Disorganization

I find that I have not followed the organization of the article well. I added points about genomic research under a (Genomic research) heading without noticing that there were already points about genomic research under an (Other) heading. Should I try to fix this somehow? Fartherred (talk) 23:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I count 69 screens of text in the "Malaria" article. Organizing the whole of it would be beyond my capabilities but gathering genomic research information mostly under one heading seems possible if that is desired. Until this is either supported or not, I will add another heading under malaria eradication efforts. Fartherred (talk) 05:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Removing an unhelpful edit

Malaria is a disease caused by unicellular eukaryotes of the plasmodium genus and, for the human variety, transmitted principally by Anopheles mosquitos. Changing the short description to "mosquito virus disease" is an unhelpful edit which I will undo.Fartherred (talk) 15:58, 6 August 2024 (UTC)