Illustration of how malarial merozoites (Plasmodium) proliferate by using red corpuscles. They penetrate the red corpuscles, ultra rapid transporters, which will allow them to avoid the filtering spleen. The merozoites then produce protein membranes which fix onto the membranes of the red corpuscles. These infected red corpuscles will then fix onto the outside of blood vessels, causing various organs to fail. The sheltered parasites proliferate until they rupture the membrane of the cells after 48 hours, spreading through the blood and parasitising other red corpuscles in order to proliferate again.