Malaria remains a global crisis that kills at least one to two million people per year, mainly children in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Forty per cent of the world's population is at risk of malaria, and each year more than 300 million people have episodes of acute malaria. In recent times, there has been a breakdown in malaria control programs. This has been caused by failure of health systems in the poorest countries, as well as the emergence of mosquitoes resistant to insecticides and malaria parasites resistant to cheap, widely available drugs. In addition, population movements, large-scale development projects, civil wars and conflicts, as well as environmental changes, have all acted in concert to increase the number of individuals at risk of malaria.
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- 1 Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, VIC.
- 2 Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, EHP, Papua New Guinea.
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