The BBC reports on a recent article in the Lancet suggesting that funding levels for malaria control and eradication are much too low to be effective in 77% of malaria-endemic countries.  Awful.  I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: if we had anopheles gambiae mosquitos (the most effective malaria transmitters, mostly found in Africa) and plasmodium falciparum malaria (the nastiest version, again mostly found in Africa) in America or Europe, this disease would be long gone.  But when Africans are the principal population of concern, the disease persists . . .
Just a side note: climate change and global travel patterns may yet make us sorry for our avoidance of this issue.  It is easy for someone to contract malaria in Africa and bring it back to the US – lord knows I have done that myself.  This is not a public health issue right now, but if a few anopheles gambiae manage to get aboard a commercial flight and get into an environment that is conducive to their reproduction (i.e. the Southeastern US during the late spring or summer), we could yet have really nasty malaria show up in America.  I wonder how fast funding would increase for malaria control and eradication then?