Catching malaria.
Most recent map of malaria worldwide, dark red indicates the greatest risk of disease.
Project and Malaria Atlas PLoS Medicine
About $ 1 billion a year goes into malaria treatment and prevention, but money hitting the best targets? Today, researchers have published a detailed map of global malaria risk, and it shows that some countries risk receiving less investment per capita than others. Public health experts hope the new information will help them realign their efforts against malaria-eradication to better respond to the threat.
Malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum , infects some 500 million people each year and kills 1 million of them. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the worst affected region, but complete data on a global scale are lacking. The latest map of malaria was established in 1968, and funding agencies today are left guessing where their dollars are needed most. In 06, the Wellcome Trust in the UK and institutions based on the world launched the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) to map, model and predict the overall risk of malaria.
MAP researchers data on the incidence of malaria reported by countries and compiled research groups from 02 to 06, as well as climate data such as temperature and aridity that limit malaria transmission . The researchers then converted this information into regional and global maps showing where current malaria transmission risk is highest. The map estimates that 2.37 billion people - 35% of the world population - are at risk of contracting malaria. This decreases the earlier risk estimates by 46% and 48% in 1994 and 02 respectively. One billion people live in high-risk areas, and outside Africa infection rates were less than 5%, the group announced online today PLoS Medicine .
The map highlights some disparities between risk and finance, said epidemiologist Carlos Guerra of the University of Oxford, UK, who led the study. For example, at-risk populations in Southeast Asia and Africa receive less funding per capita than those living in low-risk areas such as the South American country of Suriname. Guerra welcomes the rapid progress in South America, but says that the current per capita funding is simply not enough to meet eradication goals and argued that the money should be reallocated to areas where malaria is a "huge problem."
The mapping results are not surprising, but are unprecedented in their accuracy, says malaria biologist Dyann Wirth of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who was not involved in the project . The work signals a "maturation" in the field of malaria research and provides an important basis to determine the success of future malaria interventions, she said.
Related Sites
- The paper malaria Card
- Atlas malaria project
- WHO malaria
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