Malaria infection cycle, artwork. Life cycle of the Plasmodium parasite that causes malaria, which can cause coma and death. At upper left, a female Anopheles mosquito bites and infects a person. Sporozoites (green) in the mosquito's saliva enter the bloodstream and migrate (first arrow) to the liver (brown), where they infect the cells and multiply into merozoites (yellow), which rupture liver cells and enter the bloodstream. The merozoites then infect and damage red blood cells (red). Sexual forms (gametocytes, pink) are also produced, which when taken up by another mosquito (centre right, second arrow), infect the insect to continue the parasite life cycle.