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Malaria is caused by a protist called Plasmodium, not by bacteria or viruses. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, which act as vectors. Free notes and FAQs.
Malaria: A Protist Disease is part of Communicable diseases in GCSE Edexcel Higher Biology.
3 min
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GCSE Edexcel Higher
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Malaria is caused by a protist called Plasmodium, not by bacteria or viruses. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, which act as vectors. Free notes and FAQs.
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Use this lesson to stay inside Communicable diseases while connecting the detail back to the wider Topic 5: Health, disease and the development of medicines topic.
Read the core explanations from Malaria: A Protist Disease before testing yourself from memory.
When you hear 'infectious disease', you probably think bacteria or viruses. But malaria breaks that pattern — it's caused by something completely different.
Here's what makes protists different from other pathogens. Bacteria are single cells without a nucleus — their DNA floats freely. Viruses aren't even proper cells — they're just genetic material in a protein coat.
Protists are single-celled organisms with a proper nucleus, like tiny animals. The malaria protist, Plasmodium, is a parasite that hijacks your red blood cells to reproduce.
You can't catch malaria from someone coughing on you. The protist has a complex life cycle that requires two hosts: humans and mosquitoes.
Here's how the cycle works. When an infected mosquito bites you, it injects saliva containing the protist. The protist travels to your liver, multiplies, then invades your red blood cells. This is when you get the classic malaria symptoms — fever, chills, and sweating.
But the cycle doesn't end there. When another mosquito bites the infected person, it picks up the protist with the blood meal. Inside the mosquito, the protist reproduces sexually, creating new forms that can infect the next human victim.
Malaria isn't like a cold that you get once and recover from. It causes recurrent episodes of fever that can last for months or even years.
This happens because the protist is clever. Some forms hide in your liver cells, staying dormant for weeks. Then they suddenly activate, burst out, and invade fresh red blood cells. Each time this happens, you get another fever episode.
The fever follows a predictable pattern — every 48 or 72 hours depending on the species of Plasmodium. This is because all the protists in your blood reproduce at the same time, bursting out of red blood cells together.
Since mosquitoes are essential for malaria transmission, most control methods target the vector, not the protist directly.
The first strategy is preventing mosquito breeding. Female mosquitoes lay eggs in stagnant water — puddles, containers, blocked drains. Remove the water, remove the breeding sites. This includes draining swamps, covering water storage, and fixing leaky pipes.
The second strategy is avoiding mosquito bites. Mosquito nets treated with insecticide create a physical and chemical barrier. The nets stop mosquitoes reaching you while you sleep, and the insecticide kills any that land on the net.
Other methods include indoor spraying with insecticides and using insect repellents. Some areas release sterile male mosquitoes to reduce breeding success.
Exam questions on malaria often test whether you understand the difference between pathogens and vectors. Here's how to avoid the common traps.
Worked example: Worked Example: Applying Malaria: A Protist Disease
Use this method to answer an exam-style question about what causes malaria?.
Answer: A complete response links mechanism, evidence, and conclusion for malaria: a protist disease.
Trap Alert: Many students write 'malaria is caused by mosquitoes'. Wrong — mosquitoes carry the protist pathogen but don't cause the disease themselves. It's like saying 'flu is caused by doorknobs' instead of 'flu virus spreads via contaminated doorknobs'.
For 6-mark questions on malaria control, structure your answer around the life cycle. Explain how each method breaks the cycle at a specific stage — breeding prevention stops new mosquitoes developing, nets prevent bites that would transmit the protist.
Published by Revise Right. Use the official specification reference to check the requirements for your course. Content updated: 2026-03-23.
Move to the related lessons or back to the topic page when you need the wider sequence before exam-style practice.
The symptoms of malaria are fever, chills and sweating, which come back as recurrent episodes for months or even years. Malaria can be fatal if untreated.
Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, which act as vectors. When an infected mosquito bites, it injects saliva containing the protist, which travels to the liver, multiplies and invades red blood cells. Another mosquito biting the infected person picks up the protist with its blood meal.
A vector is an organism that carries a pathogen from one host to another. The mosquito is the vector for malaria: it does not get sick itself but spreads the Plasmodium protist between humans.
The malaria life cycle needs two hosts. An infected mosquito injects the protist in its saliva, the protist multiplies in the liver and then invades red blood cells, and another mosquito picks it up when it bites, with the protist reproducing sexually inside the mosquito.
Malaria is caused by a protist called Plasmodium, not by bacteria or viruses. Plasmodium is a parasite that infects red blood cells, causing recurrent fever episodes that can be fatal if untreated. Mosquitoes carry the protist but do not cause the disease themselves.
Malaria is controlled mainly by targeting the mosquito vector. Preventing breeding by removing stagnant water stops new mosquitoes developing, and insecticide-treated mosquito nets stop bites while people sleep. Indoor insecticide spraying, insect repellents and releasing sterile male mosquitoes also help.
Plasmodium is the protist that causes malaria. It is a parasite that infects red blood cells to reproduce, causing recurrent fever episodes that can be fatal if untreated.
Malaria is caused by a protist, not a virus or bacteria. The protist, Plasmodium, is a single-celled organism with a proper nucleus that infects red blood cells, while viruses are just genetic material in a protein coat.
Mosquito nets treated with insecticide create a physical and chemical barrier. The nets stop mosquitoes reaching people while they sleep, and the insecticide kills any that land on the net, preventing bites that would transmit the protist.
Malaria keeps coming back because some forms of the protist hide in liver cells, staying dormant for weeks, then activate and invade fresh red blood cells. The fever follows a pattern every 48 or 72 hours because the protists burst out of red blood cells together.
Protists are single-celled organisms with a proper nucleus, like tiny animals. Bacteria are single cells without a nucleus, with DNA that floats freely, and viruses are not proper cells, just genetic material in a protein coat.
Mosquitoes do not cause malaria; they carry the protist pathogen that causes it. The mosquito is the vector, which does not get sick but spreads the disease from one host to another.
Removing stagnant water helps control malaria because female mosquitoes lay eggs in it. Draining swamps, covering water storage and fixing leaky pipes remove breeding sites, so fewer new mosquitoes develop to carry the protist.
Malaria fever follows a pattern every 48 or 72 hours, depending on the species of Plasmodium, because all the protists in the blood reproduce at the same time. They burst out of red blood cells together, causing each fever episode.
Some areas release sterile male mosquitoes to reduce breeding success, so fewer mosquitoes are produced to carry malaria. This targets the vector rather than the protist directly.