The Challenges of Malaria North America

Feb. 11, 2022 - PRLog -- We think of malaria today as a tropical disease but, until the early twentieth century, the infection ranged as far north as the Arctic Circle and was prevalent throughout Europe and the Eastern half of North America.

In the United States, chloroquine was rediscovered and, in the UK, a new type of antimalarial
(proguanil; Paludrine®) was discovered by chemists at ICI. Proguanil was evaluated initially in Liverpool and in Oxford. After the War, following the success in eliminating malaria from Europe and North America, the newly formed World Health Organisation (WHO) embarked on an ambitious attempt to eradicate all malaria from the world. It is often said that this was successful in eliminating malariologists
but failed to eliminate malaria.

There are challenges ahead. Human Rights around the world are questioned (https://medicine.sbs/anti-vaxxer-human-rights-around-the-world/). Because of malaria's mode of transmission (through Anopheles mosquito bites), it is an almost exclusively tropical disease. "Temperature is particularly critical. For example, at temperatures below 20°C (68°F), Plasmodium falciparum (which causes severe malaria) cannot complete its growth cycle in the Anopheles mosquito, and thus cannot be transmitted" ("Where malaria occurs," 2010). But where the parasites can complete their growth cycle, wherever the Anopheles mosquitoes can survive and multiply, so do incidents of the disease.

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