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by Robert MacKay, Thursday, 11 November 2010 | Categories: Travel Clinic

Cheryl Cole’s recent collapse and subsequent diagnosis with malaria made the headlines and projected the illness into the spotlight in a way that had never happened before in the UK.

Now, only a few weeks later, another high profile case of malaria has made the headlines. Didier Drogba, the 32-year-old Chelsea striker complained of feeling unwell at the beginning of October but was only diagnosed as having Malaria this Monday.

The Chelsea manager, Carlo Ancelotti, said that he didn’t know how his player had contracted the tropical disease but Drogba was told that he could have been carrying it for weeks. He began an intensive 48-hour course of medication yesterday.

The footballer had already been tested for malaria and other tropical diseases but the results came back negative: This is not an uncommon occurrence as the parasitic activity in the blood goes up and down on a daily basis and can be affected by anti-malarials. Drogba is soldiering on rather bravely but all the tabloid criticism of Cheryl Cole is misplaced. Any suggestion that Cheryl overplayed her illness is a complete disgrace – malaria kills around a million people in Africa every year and we even have a few deaths in the UK each year when people are not treated for the tropical disease on time.





 
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