Friday Futures: The Growing Threat of Malaria

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-07-03 11:51:00 UTC
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(Photo Credit: Hugh Sturrock. Wellcome Images)

Malaria is already a global health problem; there were 240 million cases of malaria in 2006, and every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria. It is going to get worse. Climate change, extinctions, and resistance to malarial drugs will leave us with some very ugly choices to make.

Climate change is going to have a major effect on malaria. Right now, malaria is a tropical illness. It needs a climate friendly to mosquitoes and the malaria parasite that lives in them. Those parasites cannot survive in temperatures under 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). That limits where malaria can spread, but global warming is going to bring a lot more of the world into the temperature range where malaria can survive.

In addition, we are starting to witness large-scale die-offs of frogs and bats.  This may be a result of climate change, or it may result from environmental pollution. Whatever the cause, it will lead to a lot more mosquitoes, which means a lot more hosts for malaria parasites.

Finally, first-line malaria drugs are starting to fail, as a result of resistance. We're seeing resistance in Cambodia right now. That resistance will spread as the parasites spread, and new kinds of resistance will pop up because of self-dosing with inadequate anti-malarials and the widespread problem of counterfeit drugs.

This is going to leave us with an ugly choice between extensive spraying for mosquitoes and the environmental contamination it entails, and the continued spread of drug-resistant malaria.

Alanna Shaikh
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