Growing in human population and increased
deforestation in the region could lead to the parasite switching host. These changes could lead to the spread of disease. Around 1millions people dies each year as a result of malaria.
Malaria is caused by parasite and is spread by mosquitoes
when they suck blood. P.knowlesi is
known as the 5th malarial parasite in humans.
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| Mosquito |
It mostly exists in monkeys, however, there have been human
cases and it has been shown in the laboratory to be able to spread from human
to human. In South East Asia, the macaques are the second most common primate
after humans.
Blood tests on 108 wild macaques showed that more than
three quarters were infected with human malaria parasite.
Professor Balbir Singh, from the Malaria Research Center
at university Malaysia: “they are huge reservoirs of P.knowlesi”. Genetic analysis showed that P.knowlesi has existed in the monkeys since before human settled in
South East Asia. The researcher said human were being infected from the “reservoir”,
rather than the disease spreading between humans. We don’t know how the
mosquito behavior will change.
“With increasing human populations and deforestation we may
get a shift to humans. The number of malaria cases is coming down so there is
also decreasing immunity. Or would deforestation reduce numbers? It could go either
way”. Deforestation or any perturbation of the ecosystem frequently leads to
human being exposed to an expanded range of biting insects and the pathogens
they transmit; yellow fever is a good example of this.
If the humans catch the parasite more often, then P.knowlesi may evolve to target humans.
Disruption of environment exposes people to a range of
known and potentially unknown pathogen transmitted by blood feeding insects
that do not typically feed on humans.
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