Malaria Hysteria: An Investigation of Africa's Deadly Disease Burden and International Intervention

Abstract

Malaria is a daunting epidemic killing millions of people annually and no region is harder hit than Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Each year there are more than 247 million malaria cases in SSA, resulting in more than 600,000 deaths. Despite a comprehensive understanding of the parasite and its transmission, worldwide eradication campaigns have failed to adequately control or eliminate the disease. This paper provides a meta-analysis of historical and current approaches to malaria eradication throughout SSA, highlighting past success and perceived failure to avoid repetitive progression down a path of narrowly focused eradication efforts. Through consideration of the economic costs associated with malaria, as well as a critique of current international elimination strategies, this analysis suggests sizeable and widespread returns to pursuing eradication measures. However, this paper finds that current methods are not sufficient to eradicate the malaria burden and multi-dimensional and all-encompassing approaches are essential to making malaria history.