ABSTRACT
Malaria is a life-threatening disease endemic in over 100 countries. Although conservative estimates suggest that 200 million people suffer from malaria, recent data put the ‡gure closer to 600 million.1,2 Malaria is caused by an intracellular protozoan of the genus Plasmodium and is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. Human malaria is caused by ‡ve species of Plasmodium spp. listed in order of importance: Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium knowlesi. The ‡rst two species, P. falciparum and P. vivax, account for almost all malaria cases, and the former is primarily responsible for the 1-2 million malaria-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
