Current status of malaria and potential for control.
Malaria remains one of the world's worst health problems with 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths annually; these deaths are primarily among children under 5 years of age and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. Of significance, more people are dying from malaria today than 30 years ago. This review considers the factors which have contributed to this gloomy picture, including those which relate to the vector, the female anopheline mosquito; to human activity such as creating new mosquito breeding sites, the impact of increased numbers of people, and how their migratory behavior can increase the incidence and spread of malaria; and the problems of drug resistance by the parasites to almost all currently available antimalarial drugs. In a selective manner, this review describes what is being done to ameliorate this situation both in terms of applying existing methods in a useful or even crucial role in control and prevention and in terms of new additions to the antimalarial armory that are being developed. Topics covered include biological control of mosquitoes, the use of insecticide-impregnated bed nets, transgenic mosquitoes manipulated for resistance to malaria parasites, old and new antimalarial drugs, drug resistance and how best to maintain the useful life of antimalarials, immunity to malaria and the search for antimalarial vaccines, and the malaria genome project and the potential benefits to accrue from it.
Phillips
R S
RS
Division of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom. S.Phillips@bio.gla.ac.uk
D017954:Africa South of the Sahara / Q000453:epidemiology; D000818:Animals; D000962:Antimalarials / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D004351:Drug Resistance; D006801:Humans; D007303:Insect Vectors; D007305:Insecticide Resistance; D008288:Malaria / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D017780:Malaria Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D009032:Mosquito Control; D055502:Secondary Prevention
D000962:Antimalarials; D017780:Malaria Vaccines