Tropical disease data. A technician enters information on malaria into a computer. Malaria is the most important of all the parasitic diseases which affect humans, bringing suffering to around 200 million people each year and death to over a million of these. The parasites responsible for malaria are plasmodium, They are P. falciparum, P. malariae, P. vivax and P. ovale. Although each species produces different biological and clinical characteristics, the parasites' life cycles are similar, in both their mosquito (Anopheles sp.) and human hosts. Photographed at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.