Malaria
Last reviewed: 05-03-2007
The disease that fought back
Japan's Self Defence Force soldiers spray an area to prevent malaria in Banda Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra February 3, 2005. REUTERS/Dadang Tri dw/JJ
Malaria is thought to kill at least one million people a year. But the true figure may be much higher because swathes of deaths go unrecorded in rural areas.
Some 80 percent of deaths from the disease are in sub-Saharan Africa. The death rate is rising and malaria is spreading to new, non-tropical countries.
Although there are great hopes for the new treatment, artemisinin combination therapy, malaria is renowned for acquiring resistance to drugs so prevention is seen as the key to combating the disease in the long-term.
The Roll Back Malaria global partnership, launched in 1998, aims to halve the burden of malaria by 2010.
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