• Disease can be classify into the following groups.

• Disease caused by other living disease causing

organisms, like bacteria, fungi, parasite and
nematodes..
• These organisms live in or on the body and interfere
with normal working of the body.
• Diseases caused by bacterial, viruses, and fungi are
referred to as infectious diseases or communicable
diseases, cholera (caused by bacterium) and measles (
caused by viruses) ,
• Parasitic diseases are disease cause by other organism,
malaria (caused by protozoan's)
• 2 Diseases that are humanly induced or humanly
inflicted.
• They are brought by mankind either as individuals
or collective society. It could also be described as
social diseases e.g coronary hearth diseases
caused by alcoholism, drug abuse, cancer.
Industrial diseases such as asbestosis, and
pollution-related disorders which usually results
to brain damage caused by lead poisoning,
asthma and cancer
• 3 .Deficiency diseases, These are related to
the absence of a certain nutrients in the diet. •
They may be due to absence of the main food
groups such as protein which result to
kwashiorkor and marasmus, the absence of
specific vitamins which may results to many
diseases such as pellagra (vitamin B), Scurvy
(Vitamin C) or rickets (Vitamin D), Deficiency of
minerals in the diet may leads to goiter,
• 4 Genetic and congenital disorder (present at
birth ).
• These disorder are raising increasing concerns In
the medical services and society in general. •
Examples of genetic disorders are cystic fibrosis,
Huntington disease and down syndrome. • Advances
in the medical science ensure that many children
who would in the past have died at the infancy from
such disorder are surviving and living to adulthood.
5 Aging and degenerative diseases:
degeneration of the body tissue can also
cause disease. For example weakening of the
eye muscles which can cause long sightedness
in many older people. And disease of the
circulatory system such as arteriosclerosis
( hardening of the arteries), aging of the joint
and bone tissue which often leads to arthritis.
• Mental illness: Mental illness covers a wide
 range of disorders. Examples are
schizophrenia senile dementia and depression
• Certain drugs have been developed that
control or reduce various forms of mental
illness. The treatment of this illness change
dramatically during the twentieth century from
lifelong confinement in lunatic asylums to care
in the community.
• The 6 groups of diseases describes above may be
grouped into 2 category.
• Infectious or communicable diseases : Many
diseases are passed on from one organism to
 another, they are said to be infectious or
contagious. Many of these diseases are
transmitted by droplet of liquids, in the air, food
or water, by touch or by sexual intercourse.
• Many are transmitted by way of intermediate
organism called vector e.g mosquito, rats e.t.c
• Non –infectious diseases : This group of diseases are
not communicable in nature. For examples, deficiency
diseases, aging, mental and degenerative, human
induced and mental diseases . They are said to be non
infectious or contagious . Genetic disorder does not
fall into this category because it is being transmitted
from parent to parent.
• It is clear from the presentation above, that there are
no rigid boundaries between the diseases categories.
Some diseases are associated with poverty.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
• Infectious diseases are those diseases that are
caused by other living organisms which invade the
body and live as parasites on the body.
• Such organisms are called pathogens. Bacteria
,viruses, fungi, and nematodes’
• The following technical terms are of use when
discussing infectious diseases.
• Aetiology – The study of the cause of disease •
Epidemiology – The study of all the factor that
contributes to the appearance of a particular
disease.
• Causative agent - The organism which causes
disease.
• Vector – An organism which carries a disease from
one person to another, or from animal to person. •
Incubation period – The period of time between the
infection and the appearance of the symptoms and
sigh.
• Infective period – The time during which a person
is capable of passing the disease on to another
 person.
• Carrier – A person who has been infected but develop no sign or
symptoms
• Notifiable diseases – A disease which must be reported by a
Doctor to the Health authorities due to its seriousness. (cholera,
TB, Polio ).
• Epidemic – Situation in which a disease spreads rapidly through a
large number of people and later disappear again.
Pandemic.- An epidemic which spreads across continents. •
Endemic – It describes a disease which is always present in a low
level at a given population.
• Sign – A visible expression of the disease which can be found by
examining a patience e.g a rash , a high temperature.
• Symptoms – An indication of a disease which is
not detectable by examination and can only be
reported by the patients e.g. headache, nausea.
• Prevention – Measure taken to prevent a person
from getting a disease e.g. vaccination, sewage
treatment , hygiene.
• Treatment – The measure taken to cure a disease
or alleviate symptoms once a person has the
diseases e.g. use of antibiotics.
MALARIA.
• Malaria : Malaria is a life threatening blood disease caused
by parasites transmitted to humans through the bites of
female Anopheles mosquito.
• The word Malaria was derived from Italian word meaning
 bad air.
• It was originally thought of as swamp fumes in Rome, where
the cause of Malaria as outbreak were a regular occurrence
there.
• Malaria has been one of the world worst killer diseases
throughout recorded human history.
• Despites attempts made to eradicate it , it remains one of
the world deadliest diseases in terms of death annually.
• Malaria is particularly common in Africa south of the
Sahara and is widespread throughout Asia and Latin
America. It used to be common in Europe and North
America.
• There are more than 100 types of plasmodium
parasites which can infect a variety of mosquitoes
species.
• Scientist have identified five major types that
specifically infect humans. They are
• 1) Plasmodium Falciparum – This is located worldwide
in tropical and sub tropical areas but are
predominantly in Africa.
• About one million are killed by its infection every year.
It can multiply rapidly and can adhere to blood vessel
wall in the brain causing rapid onset of severe malaria
including cerebra malaria.
• 2) Plasmodium Vivax; This is found in the sub tropical
part of the world. Located specifically in Latin America,
part of Africa and Asia. It is believed to be the most
widespread due to high population it affected in Asia.
It has dormant liver stage that can activate and invade
 the blood after months or years, causing many patients
to relapse.
• Plasmodium ovale ; The Strain is located mainly in
West Africa, and Asia. It is biologically and
morphologically similar to Plasmodium Vivax. But
unlike Plasmodium vivax, it can affect individuals
that are negative to certain blood group. This is
the case for many sub-Saharan residents.
• Plasmodium Malariae : This is located world wide
and it is only human malaria with 3 day cycle. If left
untreated it can cause a long lasting chronic
infection that can last a life time and may caused
nephrotic syndrome
• Plasmodium Knowlesi is located in Southeast
Asia and associated with a type of Monkey
(Macaquens). It has a 24 hours cycle and can
thus multiply rapidly in a patient.
The successful development of the plasmodium
parasites within the mosquitoes depends on
several factors but the most important factors are
humidity and temperature.
When an infected mosquitoes bites a human host,
the parasites the enter the blood streams and lay
dormant within the liver.
It can remain in the host for the next 5 to 16 days.
 The host will show no symptoms. The malaria
parasite will then begins to multiply asexually
• The new malaria parasites are then released
into the bloodstream where they infects the
red blood cells.
• Some parasites are left in the liver and are not
released until later, resulting in reoccurrence. •
An unaffected mosquitoes become infected
once it feeds on an infected individuals, thus
beginning the cycle again.
 Symptoms of Malaria Disease.
• An uncomplicated Malaria typically last for 6-10 days
and occur in cycles
• Symptoms are often similar to that of Flu with the
following progression of symptoms, through cold, hot
and sweating stages, sensation of cold, shivering,
fever, headaches, and vomiting (seizures occur in
young children). Sweats follows by a returns to normal
temperature with tiredness.
• Severe malaria causes vital organ dysfunction and has
the capacity to be fatal if left untreated the symptom
includes:
• Fever and chills, impaired consciousness,
prostration (prayer position) , multiple
convulsions, deep breathings and respiratory
distress, Abnormal bleeding and sign of anemia,
clinical jaundice and evidence of vital organ
dysfunction.
• Test and Diagnosis of Malaria : Choice of testing
method depends on the medical facilities
available, there are two main methods • The old
conventional microspic
• Rapid diagnostic test (RDT)
Prevention and treatment of Malaria
• Prophylaxis, that is the use of medicine (drugs) to prevent
disease, can be used by people entering the endemic area. •
The usually accepted preventive drugs is chloroqine or
mefloquine which is taking weekly before and during a visit
endemic area.
• The dose must be taken for six weeks after leaving the area. •
Other synthetic drugs are proguanil hydrochloride and
pyrmethamine.
• The effectiveness of these drugs have declined as the
parasite developed resistance.
• Plasmodium Falciparum is now resistants in most areas
where malaria is most endemic.
• Together with the use of drugs, other measures
such as clothing (long sleeves and trousers) and
mosquitoes net at night should be used in
 mosquitoes areas.
• There are many new insecticides are being used
kill mosquitoes
• It may be necessary to administer druds by
injection which then produces a high
concentration of the chosen drugs to kill the
malaria organisms in the blood.
ERADICATION OF MALARIA
• In 1985, The world Health Organization launched
a program designed to eradicate malaria from the
world. A large sum of money were devoted in this
 project. The methods used were the following.
• Drainage of stagnant water. The lava stages of the
mosquitoes lives in stagnant water. The drainage
removes breeding sites. some success was
recorded through this program. However. We
must ensure that ponds, small ditches and even
container holding water are not allowed to
provide breeding places for mosquitoes.
• Destruction of the breeding stages of the
mosquitoes; The larvae and pupae of
mosquitoes obtain their oxygen by means of
small tubes which are pushed through the
water surface. Thus any attempts to block this
 tubes will result to death of intermediate life
stages of the mosquitoes. The simplest
methods that can be used is a thin layer of oil
spreads over the water surfaces to block the
breeding tubes
• Petroleum oil sprayed from back park is used.
• Destruction of the adult mosquitoes : This is
aimed at killing the mosquitoes that enter
houses. thus the indoor surfaces are sprayed
with persistent insecticides. If dwelling are
sprayed for three years persistently , the cycle
of mosquitoes are disrupted.