Essential Medicines News

“First Global Malaria Map in Decades Shows Reduced Risk,” University of Florida News, 26 February 2008.

Researchers at Oxford University, the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, and the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute have released the first spatial map of global malaria risk in the past four decades in PLoS Medicine this week. The Malaria Atlas Project shows that while 2.37 billion people, or 35% of the world’s population, are at risk of malaria, 1 billion of these have a much lower risk of infection than was assumed under previous maps.

Coauthor, David Smith, explains the implications of these findings:

This gives some hope of pursuing malaria elimination because the prevalence isn’t as universally high as many people suppose. It’s reasonable to think we can reduce or interrupt transmission in many places, but the prospects for success will improve if we make plans that are based on good information about malaria’s distribution.

The Malaria Atlas Project compiled information from surveys from 87 countries along with other national statistics, with hopes that control measures will be focused in the hardest hit communities. The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and thus all data are freely accessible through the project’s website so that it may be available to the widest range of users.