Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran

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Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran
Died	Paris, France
Nationality	France
Fields	Medicine
Known for	Trypanosomes, malaria
Notable awards	Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (1907)

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (June 18, 1845 – May 18, 1922) was a French physician.

In 1880, while working in the military hospital in Constantine, Algeria, he discovered that the cause of malaria is a protozoan, after observing the parasites in a blood smear taken from a patient who had just died of malaria.^[1] This was the first time that protozoa were shown to be a cause of disease. He later worked on the trypanosomes, particularly sleeping sickness.^[2] For this work and later discoveries of protozoan diseases he was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Laveran is interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (18 Juni 1845 - 18 Mei 1922) adalah fisikawan, patolog, dan parasitolog Prancis yang menemukan parasit penyebab malaria pada manusia. Untuk ini dan pekerjaan pada penyakit protozoa ia menerima Hadiah Nobel Fisiologi atau Kedokteran pada tahun 1907.

Dididik di fakultas kedokteran Strasbourg, ia menjadi dokter bedah selama Perang Perancis-Prusia (1870-1871) dan mempraktekkan dan mengajarkan militer pengobatan sampai 1897, di mana ia menjadi anggota Institut Pasteur, Paris. Selama menjadi dokter bedah militer di Aljazair pada 1880, Laveran menemukan penyebab malaria dalam otopsi yang diadakannya pada korban malaria. Ia menemukan organisme kausatif menjadi protozoa yang dinamainya Oscillaria malariae, meski namanya kemudian diganti Plasmodium.

Laveran memiliki pengaruh kuat dalam pengembangan penelitian dalam ilmu kedokteran tropis, mengadakan kerja yang berhasil pada tripanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, dan penyakit protozoa lainnya, sebagaimana pekerjaan pentingnya pada malaria. Ia mendirikan Laboratorium Penyakit Tropis di Institut Pasteur (1907) dan Societe de Pathologie Exotique (1908).

Plasmodium falciparum adalah protozoa parasit, salah satu spesies Plasmodium yang menyebabkan penyakit malaria pada manusia. Protozoa ini masuk pada tubuh manusia melalui nyamuk Anopheles betina. P. falciparum menyebabkan infeksi paling berbahaya dan memiliki tingkat komplikasi dan mortalitas malaria tertinggi.

 

Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria,^[1] killing between one and three million people, the majority of whom are young children in Sub-Saharan Africa.^[2] Ninety percent of malaria-related deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is commonly associated with poverty, but is also a cause of poverty^[3] and a major hindrance to economic development.

Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public health problem. The disease is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Five species of the plasmodium parasite can infect humans; the most serious forms of the disease are caused by Plasmodium falciparum. Malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium malariae causes milder disease in humans that is not generally fatal. A fifth species, Plasmodium knowlesi, causes malaria in macaques but can also infect humans. This group of human-pathogenic Plasmodium species is usually referred to as malaria parasites.

Usually, people get malaria by being bitten by an infective female Anopheles mosquito. Only Anopheles mosquitoes can transmit malaria, and they must have been infected through a previous blood meal taken on an infected person. When a mosquito bites an infected person, a small amount of blood is taken, which contains microscopic malaria parasites. About one week later, when the mosquito takes its next blood meal, these parasites mix with the mosquito's saliva and are injected into the person being bitten. The parasites multiply within red blood cells, causing symptoms that include symptoms of anemia (light-headedness, shortness of breath, tachycardia, etc.), as well as other general symptoms such as fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness, and, in severe cases, coma, and death. Malaria transmission can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites with mosquito nets and insect repellents, or by mosquito control measures such as spraying insecticides inside houses and draining standing water where mosquitoes lay their eggs. Work has been done on malaria vaccines with limited success and more exotic controls, such as genetic manipulation of mosquitoes to make them resistant to the parasite have also been considered. ^[4]

Although some are under development, no vaccine is currently available for malaria that provides a high level of protection^[5]; preventive drugs must be taken continuously to reduce the risk of infection. These prophylactic drug treatments are often too expensive for most people living in endemic areas. Most adults from endemic areas have a degree of long-term infection, which tends to recur, and also possess partial immunity (resistance); the resistance reduces with time, and such adults may become susceptible to severe malaria if they have spent a significant amount of time in non-endemic areas. They are strongly recommended to take full precautions if they return to an endemic area. Malaria infections are treated through the use of antimalarial drugs, such as quinine or artemisinin derivatives. However, parasites have evolved to be resistant to many of these drugs. Therefore, in some areas of the world, only a few drugs remain as effective treatments for malaria.