Quinine Quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to "Plasmodium falciparum" that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While used for restless legs syndrome, it is not recommended for this purpose due to the risk of side effects. It can be taken by mouth or used intravenously. Malaria resistance to quinine occurs in certain areas of the world. Quinine is also the ingredient in tonic water that gives it its bitter taste. Common side effects include headache, ringing in the ears, trouble seeing, and sweating. More severe
Human genetic resistance to malaria as in other diseases, innate immunity leads into, and stimulates, adaptive immunity. Mutations may have detrimental as well as beneficial effects, and any single mutation may have both. Infectiousness of malaria depends on specific proteins present in the cell walls and elsewhere in red blood cells. Protective mutations alter these proteins in ways that make them inaccessible to malaria organisms. However, these changes also alter the functioning and form of red blood cells that may have visible effects, either overtly, or by microscopic examination of red blood cells. These changes may impair the function of red blood cells in various