How malaria causes anemia?

Hi Nancy! Malaria is caused by a one-celled protozoan parasite usually in the saliva of the female Anopheles species mosquito when it bites a person. Some of the infected mosquito saliva enters the tiny skin capillary blood vessels in which red cells float. The infective agent, called a sporozoite, then enters the host/person's red cells where it continues to live and grow and ruptures the red cell and re-infects many more red cells. The destruction of the red cells then results in anemia as the blood hemoglobin and red blood cell count drops to anemic levels.