Fact Sheet: Malaria, General Public Fact Sheet, August 26, 2015

Malaria is a parasite that spreads by infecting one after another two types of hosts: humans and female Anopheles mosquitoes. In humans, the parasites grow and multiply first in the liver cells and then in the red cells of the blood. In the blood, successive broods of parasites grow inside the red cells and destroy them, releasing daughter parasites ("merozoites") that continue the cycle by invading other red cells