How many times have you treated Malaria this year?
🚨This is the right way to treat MALARIA at home. Stop wasting money on the wrong drugs.
A thread🧵
1. Malaria remains one of the biggest health challenges in Africa, with over half a million deaths every year, most of them children under five! But despite efforts, malaria continues to spread, partly due to the misuse of medications.
I will take my time to explain why treating malaria with only one drug (monotherapy) is a bad idea... and what you consider henceforth.
Please keep following this thread. 🙏
2. First, why are people treating malaria over and over?
Malaria keeps coming back because many people don't treat it properly. They might stop taking their meds as soon as they feel better, or they use drugs that don’t fully clear the parasites. The problem gets worse when people use only one drug (monotherapy) instead of a combination based type.
A single drug can’t kill all the malaria parasites, and those that survive can multiply and make you sick again.
Another reason is the testing for the type of malaria parasites.
3. Why are some drugs not so effective?
Malaria parasites are clever. They can become resistant to drugs. This means the drugs that used to work perfectly before might not work anymore. Examples of drugs that are no longer as effective due to resistance include chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (also called Fansidar). Using these alone is like fighting a lion with a stick, it won’t work!
Yes, you can argue that our forefathers used quinine, chloroquine, and the rest, and they were perfectly fine. So why the changes now? It is because aside from forming great resistance to these drugs, our body genetic makeup is evolving and changing with new environmental factors such as weather, food we eat, etc.
I am sure you are getting the point... let's proceed!
5. What if you get sick again after taking the ACT?
This is where MOST OF US is getting things wrong (honest truth):
Skipping doses: Even if you feel better, you have to finish the medicine!
- Buying fake or expired drugs: According to NAFDAC, >70% of the drugs consumed in Nigeria are foreign imports, and they admitted last year February that about half of them (35%) are fake. This means you are likely to be taking fake antimalaria drugs all these while. I am sorry, but that is the honest truth. ⚠️
Self-medicating: Using leftover malaria drugs from your last treatment.🙄 you think I don't know?...lol. You are only doing yourself more harm than good. Developing a habit that creates drug resistance, which is my next point.
6. Drug resistance: A major reason why malaria drugs mostly fail!
One of the biggest challenges we face in the world today is drug resistance. Malaria parasites have learned how to outsmart some of the medicines we’ve been using for years. When these parasites become resistant, the drugs no longer work as well, or even at all.
For example, chloroquine, which was once very effective, is now almost useless in many parts of Africa. This is why it’s so important to avoid using old treatments and rely on modern, combination therapies like ACT (artemisinin-based combination therapy), which are somewhat more effective but not wholly.
Credit: Asexual Doctor
0 Comments