MALARIA: A STATISTICAL INDEX

MALARIA: A STATISTICAL INDEX

1. Number of clinical cases per year: 300 million to 500 million

2. Number of deaths per year: 1.5 million to 2.7 million, about 4 percent to 5 percent of all fatalities

3. Rank among major infectious diseases in mortality rates: 3rd (after pneumococcal acute respiratory infections and tuberculosis)

4. Occurrence: 90 percent of all cases in sub-Saharan Africa; two-thirds of remaining cases in six countries: India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Colombia, Solomon Islands (in descending order)

5. Population affected: 2.4 billion people, about 40 percent of the world's population

6. Estimated global annual direct and indirect costs (including lost labor) in 1995: $2 billion

7. Estimated worldwide expenditure on malaria research, prevention, and treatment (1993): $84 million

8. Estimated worldwide expenditure per malaria fatality (ca. 1990): $65; as compared with HIV/AIDS, $3,274 and asthma, $789

Sources: World Health Organization, Wellcome Trust