How does Malaria relate to an Anthropology class?

Question

Any help would be great...gotta know! Thank you!

Answer 1

Along with what the previous poster said, malaria is actually thought to have come about due to human action-- namely the development of agriculture and increased sedentism.  These developments led to more places for mosquitos to breed and a higher population density on which they could feed.  Also, as the linked article mentions, the presence of malaria in certain areas has done much to shape the human activity there, from affecting the construction of the Panama canal to making it more difficult for Europeans to colonize parts of West Africa by destroying their armies, while leaving the locals with resistance to live their merry lives.

Answer 2

Malaria demonstrates human evolution.  

A blood disease in humans called Sickle-Cell Anemia causes humans to be immune to Malaria, a deadly disease carried by mosquitoes.  This is because anemic people have irregular (sickle) shaped blood cells instead of round blood cells.  The good side is that the organisms causing malaria cannot live in the oddly shaped cells.  The bad side is that oxygen is not as effectively transported and the misshaped cells can clog parts of the cardiovascular system.

Groups living in areas of the world with high levels of Malaria tend to have more members with "low level" sickle-cell anemia, which protects them from getting Malaria.   Groups living in Malaria free locations tend to have very few people effected by sickle-cell.

Malaria has been a problem for certain populations for so long that they have now evolved to better deal with the disease.   Non-sickle-cell individuals kept dying from malaria and so their genes could not get passed onto the next generation.  IN contrast, individuals with sickle-cell survived and passed their genes onto following generations.  The inevitable result has been a population with high amounts of sickle-cell anemia and high tolerance of malaria.

Hope this helped.

Answer 3

yes... i had a medical anthro class back in college and actually did my report on malria... look up epidemeology...