Title: Parasite factors
Course: Communicable Diseases Part 1 - Ethiopia (Full)

Parasite factors

Drug resistance

Use of non-effective drugs may cause a malaria epidemic since Plasmodium infections will not be properly cleared, allowing parasites to stay longer in the blood of an infected person. This increases the number of people who carry the parasite in their blood, which in turn increases the opportunities for the mosquito vector to take an infected blood meal and then transmit parasites to new susceptible hosts.