Malaria

Malaria is a cyclical infection of the liver and then red blood cells

Plasmodium sporozoites, injected by a feeding female Anopheles mosquito, first infect hepatocytes in a clinically silent liver stage before releasing merozoites that invade red blood cells. Within red cells the parasite grows, consumes haemoglobin and multiplies, then ruptures the cell synchronously to release more merozoites: this synchronous rupture produces the classic cyclical fevers, though P. falciparum often loses this synchrony and causes a more continuous fever instead.