Baby with malaria receiving quinine treatment in the port city of Kisumu in western Kenya. KAREN KASMAUSKI / CORBIS
Between 1955 and 1969, the Global Malaria Eradication Program, overseen by the World Health Organization (WHO), eliminated the disease from most developed countries. But worldwide eradication proved to be much more complex than its proponents had hoped. Strains of Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes resistant to insecticides and of Plasmodium parasites resistant to drug treatment presented scientific challenges and increased the costs of eradication. Political instability in many parts of the developing world, and a lack of funding from donor countries, discouraged further eradication efforts for decades.
Today malaria remains a major public-health threat in sub-Saharan Africa, where 80 percent of the world’s known cases occur. In 2009, WHO reported 225 million cases of malaria and 781,000 deaths. While this was a decline from the 985,000 ...
