ABSTRACT
Despite a century of systematic disease control efforts, malaria is still rampant in several regions of the world (map 2.1), draining the vitality of about 100 nations, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara (WHO 2002). More than 50 percent of the world's population is at risk of malaria infection today. During the Global Malaria Eradication Campaign between 1955 and 1969, malaria disappeared from the former Soviet Union, southern Europe, the United States, all but one of the Caribbean islands, and Taiwan (China). It was effectively suppressed in several subtropical and tropical regions in southern Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, and the Middle East. Tropical Africa was, however, excluded from the eradication campaign, and it and New Guinea are the only regions in which the malaria burden persisted at high intensity throughout the twentieth century.
