title: Malaria risk: estimation of the malaria burden.
abstract: Accurate estimates of the global burden of malaria are important for planning, monitoring and advocacy. Snow et al. attempt to address the shortcomings of previous estimates of the incidence of malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum by combining current and historical data. However, we believe that the design of their model and its inputs have led to a significant overestimate of the malaria burden outside Africa--as in the example of the World Health Organization (WHO) western Pacific region (WPR), for which their model predicts 60 times the 2002 incidence reported by national malaria-control programmes.
authors.affiliation: Malaria, Other Vector-borne and Parasitic Diseases Unit, World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, PO Box 2932, Manila, Philippines. belld@wpro.who.int
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.forename: Pernille
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jorgensen
authors.forename: Eva Maria
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Christophel
authors.forename: Kevin L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Palmer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001210:Asia, Southeastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014944:World Health Organization