Q.Assertion (A) : A person infected with malaria suffers from chill and high fever, recurring every three or four days. Reason (R) : The parasite attacks the RBC resulting in their rupture and release of haemozoin.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The characteristic recurring chills and high fever in malaria are indeed caused by the synchronous rupture of red blood cells and the release of toxins like haemozoin by the Plasmodium parasite, making both the assertion and reason correct, with the reason explaining the assertion.
Malaria is a disease whose symptoms are directly tied to the life cycle of the Plasmodium parasite within the human body. Understanding this cycle, particularly the phase involving red blood cells, is key to grasping why the symptoms manifest as they do. The recurrent fever and chills are not random; they are a precise biological event.
When an infected Anopheles mosquito bites a human, it injects sporozoites. These travel to the liver, multiply, and then release merozoites into the bloodstream. It is when these merozoites invade red blood cells (RBCs) that the symptomatic phase of malaria begins. Inside the RBCs, the parasites grow and multiply, consuming hemoglobin. This process culminates in the synchronized rupture of a large number of infected RBCs, releasing new parasites and metabolic byproducts, including haemozoin, into the bloodstream. This sudden release triggers a strong inflammatory response from the host's immune system, leading to the characteristic chills and high fever. The periodicity of these symptoms directly reflects the duration of the asexual reproductive cycle of the parasite within the RBCs.
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Analyze Assertion (A): "A person infected with malaria suffers from chill and high fever, recurring every three or four days."
- This statement is factually correct. The clinical presentation of malaria typically involves bouts of chills followed by high fever. The recurrence pattern is characteristic: for example, Plasmodium vivax and P. ovale cause tertian malaria, where fever recurs every 48 hours (on the third day), while Plasmodium malariae causes quartan malaria, with fever recurring every 72 hours (on the fourth day). P. falciparum can also exhibit a tertian pattern or more irregular fevers. Thus, the assertion accurately describes the disease's symptoms.
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Analyze Reason (R): "The parasite attacks the RBC resulting in their rupture and release of haemozoin." …
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