Malaria Symptoms and Treatment in Children

Malaria is one of the most common diseases to be found in children below five years of age. Malaria is a mosquito-borne parasitic infection generally characterized by fever, chills, and sweating. Malaria parasites contain the capacity to inflate in a short time thereby posing a risk of epidemic.

Symptoms

* Babies suffering from malaria will show sudden behavioral changes like irritability, lethargy, drowsiness, loss of appetite and aversion towards food.

* Your baby is likely to get fever when suffering from malaria. In certain cases, the fever can rise with time while in some infants, the fever can shoot up immediately and go as high as 105 degrees.

* When you baby is down with malaria, he will show flu-like symptoms like chills, sweating, headache and muscle aches.

* You baby may also show some rare symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea when suffering from malaria. If malaria affects your baby’s brain, it might lead to serious and aggressive symptoms like seizures, convulsions and unconsciousness.

* You baby might pass less urine or even suffer kidney damage or kidney failure if malaria affects the kidneys.

Treatment

* Malaria can at times lead to severe complications. Therefore, prompt diagnosis and treatment is required to fight it. Anti-malarial medicines such as chloroquine or quinine, given by mouth, by injection, or intravenously (into the veins) are used to treat malaria.

* The type of medicine prescribed, and the term of your treatment, will rest on a number of factors like the type of malaria, whether you are pregnant, your age, the place where you were infected and the severity of the symptoms.

* Doctors usually look out for signs of dehydration, convulsions, anemia, and other complications that can affect the brain, kidneys, or spleen in the patient.

* Babies suffering from malaria should to be kept on fluids, blood transfusions, and breathing assistance.