Malaria: A Childhood Threat?

08/29/2007

We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.
Lloyd Alexander

National Geographic (July 2007; www.nationalgeographic.com) published a sobering article on a reviving global threat, “Bedlam in the Blood: Malaria.” The introduction to this article observed…

“We live on a malarious planet. It may not seem that way from the vantage point of a wealthy country, where malaria is sometimes thought of, if it is thought of at all, as a problem that has mostly been solved, like smallpox or polio. In truth, malaria now affects more people than ever before. It’s endemic to 106 nations, threatening half the world’s population. In recent years, the parasite has grown so entrenched and has developed resistance to so many drugs that the most potent strains can scarcely be controlled. This year malaria will strike up to a half billion people. At least a million will die, most of them under the age of five, the vast majority living in Africa. That’s more than twice the annual toll of a generation ago. “The outcry over this epidemic, until recently, has been muted. Malaria is a plague of the poor, easy to overlook. The most unfortunate fact about malaria, some researchers believe, is that prosperous nations got rid of it. In the meantime, several distinctly unprosperous regions have reached the brink of total malarian collapse, virtually ruled by swarms of buzzing, flying syringes.”

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