How is malaria transmitted from mosquitoes to humans?

Malaria is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. These mosquitoes feed on human blood to obtain the proteins necessary to nourish their eggs, typically biting between dusk and dawn.123

During this blood meal, the infected mosquito injects immature forms of the Plasmodium parasite, known as sporozoites, directly into the person’s bloodstream. Once inside the host, these sporozoites travel to the liver, where they mature and multiply before reentering the bloodstream to infect and destroy red blood cells.123