26 Feb 08

The Malaria Atlas Project maps malaria occurrences world-wide.

Thirty-five per cent of the world’s population live in areas where there is a risk of deadly malaria, according to the first spatial map of global malaria risk in forty years.

The Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), led by Oxford University Professor Bob Snow in conjunction with the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, found that 2.37 billion people were at risk of contracting P. falciparum malaria, the deadliest human malaria parasite, in 2007.  The MAP, funded by the Wellcome Trust, charts the prevalence of malaria throughout the globe.

The MAP researchers found that of the 2.37 billion at risk of contracting malaria, almost 1 billion people lived under a much lower risk of infection than was previously assumed from historical maps. This lower than expected risk extends across America, Asia, and even parts of Africa where risk has classically been classified as high.

We were very surprised to find a significant number of people were facing a much lower risk than was previously thought,’ said Dr Simon Hay from the University of Oxford’s Spatial Ecology and Epidemiology Group. `Of course, this does not mean that malaria is any less of a problem, but it gives us hope that eliminating the disease from certain regions may be achievable using tools as simple and cost-effect as insecticide-treated bed nets.’

Professor Bob Snow, who leads the MAP team in Kenya, said: ‘At a time when donors and international agencies are spending more money on malaria control and re-considering the prospects of malaria elimination, it is critical to have a map of where the disease risks exist. Such a map has been conspicuous by its absence for 40 years.’
He added: ‘Our recent work is the first of its kind, and it should guide where investment should continue to increase, and where elimination may be possible.’

The MAP team have spent three years compiling information from the health statistics of countries, tourist travel advisories, climate, mosquito vectors and surveys of malaria infection recorded in nearly 5,000 communities, across 87 countries at risk of P. falciparum malaria.

They also incorporated information about climactic conditions that affect mosquito’s life cycle and thus the likelihood of active transmission. Where malaria transmission is low, the map illustrates the possibility of using existing control strategies to eliminate the malaria parasite.

Malaria is a parasitic disease that occurs in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, with over 500 million reported cases each year. Of these, one million, mostly children living in sub-Saharan Africa, die as a result.

By publishing their research online in an open access journal, the authors intend to guarantee global availability and facilitate ongoing updates via their website once new data becomes available.

Dr Carlos Guerra, an Oxford-based MAP researcher, added: ‘Making data and maps more accessible on the worldwide web is a large part of the MAP’s philosophy of getting the science accessed, critiqued, and used by a much wider range of users.’