Question

Though malarial parasite invades the liver, liver functioning is not considerably affected in malaria. Give reason.

Answer 1

Malarial parasite:

1. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease.
2. The malarial parasite is Plasmodium which involves two hosts in its life cycle.
3. The hosts are- female Anopheles mosquitoes and humans.
4. The life cycle of Plasmodium involves several different stages.
5. When, mosquito bites, the Plasmodium parasite enters the host’s bloodstream from the salivary glands of the affected mosquito.
6. Here, the parasite is in the stage of sporozoites.
7. Through blood, the sporozoites enter the liver and multiply there.
8. But, they remain dormant in the liver and do not cause any damage to the liver cells.
9. From the liver, they enter into the RBCs in the form of merozoites.
10. The merozoites multiply rapidly and infect more RBCs.
11. This is the infective stage when symptoms start appearing.
12. Later they produce gametocytes and again enter the mosquito where they again produce sporozoites.
13. Thus, the cycle continues.
14. So, the merozoites are infectious that are formed in RBCs after exiting the liver.

Therefore, though malarial parasite invades the liver, liver functioning is not considerably affected by malaria.