The use of preventive drugs is often not practical for those who live in areas where malaria exists, and their use is usually given only to pregnant women and short-term visitors. This is due to the cost of the drugs, side effects from long-term use, and the difficulty in obtaining antimalarial drugs outside of wealthy nations. During pregnancy, medication to prevent malaria has been found to improve the weight of the baby at birth and decrease the risk of anaemia in the mother. The use of preventive drugs where malaria-bearing mosquitoes are present may encourage the development of partial resistance.Giving antimalarial drugs to infants through intermittent preventive therapy can reduce the risk of having malaria infection, hospital admission, and anaemia.Mefloquine is more effective than sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in preventing malaria for HIV-negative pregnant women. Cotrimoxazole is effective in preventing malaria infection and reduce the risk of getting anaemia in HIV-positive women. Giving sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine for three or more doses as intermittent preventive therapy is superior than two doses for HIV-positive women living in malaria-endemic areas.Prompt treatment of confirmed cases with artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) may also reduce transmission. Others
Community participation and health education strategies promoting awareness of malaria and the importance of control measures have been successfully used to reduce the incidence of malaria in some areas of the developing world. Recognising the disease in the early stages can prevent it from becoming fatal.
To avoid this fate, the P. falciparum parasite displays adhesive proteins on the surface of the infected blood cells, causing the blood cells to stick to the walls of small blood vessels, thereby sequestering the parasite from passage through the general circulation and the spleen. The blockage of the microvasculature causes symptoms such as those in placental malaria. Sequestered red blood cells can breach the blood–brain barrier and cause cerebral malaria. Genetic resistance
According to a 2005 review, due to the high levels of mortality and morbidity caused by malaria—especially the P. falciparum species—it has placed the greatest selective pressure on the human genome in recent history. Several genetic factors provide some resistance to it including sickle cell trait, thalassaemia traits, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, and the absence of Duffy antigens on red blood cells.The impact of sickle cell trait on malaria immunity illustrates some evolutionary trade-offs that have occurred because of endemic malaria. Sickle cell trait causes a change in the haemoglobin molecule in the blood. Normally, red blood cells have a very flexible, biconcave shape that allows them to move through narrow capillaries; however, when the modified haemoglobin S molecules are exposed to low amounts of oxygen, or crowd together due to dehydration, they can stick together forming strands that cause the cell to distort into a curved sickle shape. In these strands, the molecule is not as effective in taking or releasing oxygen, and the cell is not flexible enough to circulate freely.