"More than half a billion people are suffering from malaria today, twice as many as scientists thought had been affected by one of the biggest killers in the developing world. The new figures are the result of detailed research that gives the most accurate assessment yet of the disease that kills at least a million people a year. Scientists now believe there are about 515 million cases of malaria out of 2.2 billion people who are at risk - about a third of the world's population.
The discovery throws the slow progress of the world's fight against malaria into sharp relief.
In countries such as Malawi, malaria claims more lives each year than Aids, but attracts a fraction of the attention. Coachloads of overseas visitors come to view the Aids projects run by Médicins Sans Frontières in the country, but few are interested in malaria.
Malaria has never captured the public imagination as Aids has done, even though children are its chief victims. Malaria is old and Aids is new. Most important, malaria is not a disease that affects the West - except for those fortunate enough to holiday in the tropics - whereas Aids threatens us all. The scale on which the parasite, transmitted by the mosquito, kills is breathtaking. A new malaria map of the world suggests that the incidence of malaria in Africa is some 50 per cent higher than previous estimates by the World Health Organisation and up to 200 per cent higher for areas outside Africa, such as in south-east Asia."
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=618474
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