Question: how long does malaria take to kill you?

Claire Donald answered on 12 Jun 2018:

Hi Scienceisthebest1 (you aren’t wrong there!)

Malaria is a horrible disease and the really sad thing is it is entirely preventable. Millions of people are infected every year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and around 450, 000 of those people die. Many of them are young children under 5 years old. Once you are bitten by an infected mosquito you can start to feel unwell within a few weeks after the bite although some parasites only cause symptoms after a few months or years. Treatment can be effective and takes about 2 weeks to clear the infection. If the infection is severe and is not treated it can be fatal but the length of time depends on how bad the infection is.

If you diagnose malaria early enough it can reduce the risk of disease which helps stop the disease spreading and infecting more people. A very easy way to help stop the spread is if everyone sleeps under a bed night so the mosquitoes (which are active only at night) can’t bite them.