Malaria May Be Worst Than We Realized

According to The Lancet:

According to Christopher Murray and colleagues at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, there were 1.24 million deaths (95% uncertainty interval 0.93—1.69 million) from malaria worldwide in 2010—around twice the figure of 655 000 estimated by WHO for the same year.

Source: The New York Times

The good news is that there is progress in reducing the mortality from malaria. The better news is that there seems to be progress being made on the development of malaria vaccines.

I think the key to dealing with malaria is still a comprehensive program, locally planned to maximize relevance, that uses all the available means to reduce the numbers of mosquitoes in the environment, to keep them away from people, and to treat people. Engineering solutions, neighborhood cleanup, bed nets, spraying indoors and outdoors, case finding and treatment, hopefully to be complemented soon by immunization all have a place. Soon there may even be new means to reduce mosquito populations or to make the mosquitoes that are present in the environment incapable of transmitting the disease agent.