07 February 2012

Malaria....worse than we thought

Even though my research group has no direct interest in malaria, I am generally interested in mosquito-borne disease, especially the major public health menaces like dengue and malaria.  So it was startling to learn of a recent report which appeared in the English medical journal, The Lancet by Christopher Murray and co-authors that suggests that world-wide deaths from malaria are likely twice as high in 2010 as previously thought (1.24 million vs. the 655,000 number produced by the CDC).  There are a lot of details in this study to consider but the one that stands out is the underestimate of children who died (CDC estimated around 95,000 compared to 524,000 in this study!).  Overall, malaria accounts for about 24% of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. 

This history of malaria in the United States is long, dating back to the early days of this country (and further back).  It's important to note that malaria was a real and common medical threat to people in many parts of the United States, especially those centered around the Tennessee Valley.  Specifically, in 1850, malaria accounted for about 46 of every 1,000 deaths in the U.S.  Eradication didn't become fully implemented until the post-WW2 years, where there was a concerted effort to eliminate the disease from major metropolitan areas.  There are still endemic cases of malaria here in the U.S. (mostly in Florida), although the likelihood that this disease becomes reestablished is low.
An. quadrimaculuts

Even with eradication, the vector of malaria is still common in many parts of the county.  In the east, the historical vector was Anopheles quadrimaculatus (Fig. 1), whereas A. freeborni was responsible for transmission in the west.  We have encountered Anopheles quadrimaculatus in tires in the midwest, although never at significant densities. 

Fig. 1.  Current distribution of An. quadrimaculatus in he United States (Univ. of Florida)