Treatment and Control

The bark of the cinchona and its product, quinine, have been used in the treatment of malaria for centuries. After World War II, they were largely replaced by the synthetic analog chloroquine. The use of chloroquine, in addition to the use of DDT for mosquito control, was expected to eradicate the disease, but a World Health Organization campaign (1955–69) to eradicate the disease globally (by controlling mosquitoes long enough to allow the human population to become disease free) proved unsuccessful. Despite that, spraying successfully eradicated the disease in some areas (Sardinia, Japan, and Taiwan).

In the 1960s several strains of the malarial parasite developed resistance to chloroquine. This, plus the growing immunity of mosquitoes to insecticides, has caused malaria to become one the of world's leading re-emerging infectious diseases, infecting an estimated 300 million people a year and killing more than a million. Mefloquine may be used in areas where the disease has become highly resistant to chloroquine, but some strains are now resistant to it and other drugs. Artemisinin (derived from sweet wormwood) in combination with other drugs is now in many cases the preferred treat for resistant strains. Amodiaquine in combination with sulfadoxine and pyrimethamine has also been shown to be effective, and malarone (atovaquone and proguanil) also is used for resistant strains. Vaccines against malaria are still experimental. Spraying is still used to control malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, but fish that feed on mosquito larva also have been employed.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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