The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years (37 page)

It wouldn’t take much for the malarial mosquitoes of Europe to start transmitting the parasite once again. Perhaps if Russia cut off Europe’s natural gas supply, as it did in the winter of 2006, rendering a blackout that might stall the water pumps. Or if a distracting health emergency occurred, like the 2003 heat wave that killed more than thirty thousand Europeans over the course of a single season.

The local
Anopheles
vectors, in Europe as in North America, are as abundant as they ever were. And every couple of years, the mosquitoes pick up some parasites and start to bite the locals.
¹⁰²

Their warm blood beckons.

   
1
.
www.stratfor.com/global_market_brief_panama_canal_expansion
.

   
2
. Pan American Health Organization, “Malaria in Panama, 1998–2004: Time Series Epidemiological Data from 1998 to 2004.”

   
3
. Médecins Sans Frontières, “ACT NOW to Get Malaria Treatment That Works to Africa,” April 2003.

   
4
. G. Sabatinelli et al., “Malaria in the WHO European Region,”
Euro Surveillance
6, no. 4 (April 2001): 61–65.

   
5
. World Health Organization,
World Malaria Report 2005
, available at
www.rbm.who.int/wmr2005/html/exsummary_en.htm
.

   
6
. Sabatinelli et al., “Malaria in the WHO European Region.”

   
1
. Interview with Themba Mzilahowa, medical entomologist, Blantyre, Malawi, February 20, 2007.

   
2
. Nicholas A. V. Beare et al., “Malarial Retinopathy: A Newly Established Diagnostic Sign in Severe Malaria,”
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
75, no. 5 (2006): 790–97.

   
3
. Correspondence with Terrie Taylor, March 4, 2007.

   
4
. Interview with Terrie Taylor, February 19–21, 2007.

   
5
. Roy Porter,
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 25.

   
6
. Andrew Spielman and Michael D’Antonio,
Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe
(New York: Hyperion, 2001), 44–45.

   
7
. Richard Carter and Kamini Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,”
Clinical Microbiology Reviews
15, no. 4 (October 2002): 579.

   
8
. Carl Zimmer,
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures
(New York: Touchstone, 2000), 17.

   
9
. Ibid., 17–18.

 
10
. David J. Marcogliese and Judith Price, “The Paradox of Parasites,”
Global Bio-diversity
3 (1997): 7–15.

 
11
. “Herbicide Hope for Malaria,” BBC News, January 31, 2003.

 
12
. Graeme O’Neill, “Pathways to Destruction,”
The Bulletin
, February 12, 2003.

 
13
. Carter and Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,” 564–94.

 
14
. Lewis W. Hackett,
Malaria in Europe: An Ecological Study
(London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 201.

 
15
. Yuemei Dong et al., “
Anopheles gambiae
Immune Responses to Human and Rodent
Plasmodium
Parasite Species,”
PLoS Pathogens
2, no. 6 ( June 2006): e52.

 
16
. R. E. Sinden et al., “Mosquito-Malaria Interactions: A Reappraisal of the Concepts of Susceptibility and Refractoriness,”
Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
34 (2004): 625–29.

 
17
. David A. Warrell and Herbert M. Gilles, eds.
Essential Malariology
, 4th ed. (London: Hodder Arnold, 2002), 59.

 
18
. Angelika Sturm et al., “Manipulation of Host Hepatocytes by the Malaria Parasite for Delivery into Liver Sinusoids,”
Science
313 (2006): 1287–90.

 
19
. Dominic P. Kwiatkowski, “How Malaria Has Affected the Human Genome and What Human Genetics Can Teach Us About Malaria,”
American Journal of Human Genetics
77 (2005): 171–90.

 
20
. Spielman and D’Antonio,
Mosquito
, 15.

 
21
. Ibid., 15–16.

 
22
. Warrell and Gilles, eds.
Essential Malariology
, 12–13.

 
23
. Robert Sallares,
Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 16.

 
24
. Robert A. Anderson et al., “The Effect of
Plasmodium yoelii nigeriensis
Infection on the Feeding Persistence of
Anopheles stephensi
Liston Throughout the Sporogonic Cycle,”
Proceedings: Biological Sciences
266 (September 7, 1999): 1729–33.

 
25
. Jacob C. Koella et al., “The Malaria Parasite,
Plasmodium falciparum
, Increases the Frequency of Multiple Feeding of Its Mosquito Vector,
Anopheles gambiae
,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
265 (1998): 763–68.

 
26
. Anthony James, “Blocking Malaria Parasite Invasion of Mosquito Salivary Glands,”
Journal of Experimental Biology
206 (2003): 3817–21.

 
27
. Heather Ferguson and Andrew F. Read, “Why Is the Effect of Malaria Parasites on Mosquito Survival Still Unresolved?”
Trends in Parasitology
18, no. 6 ( June 2002): 256–61.

 
28
. Renaud Lacroix et al., “Malaria Infection Increases Attractiveness of Humans to Mosquitoes,”
PLoS Biology
3, no. 9 (September 2005): e298.

 
29
. Kevin Graham, “Rare Gene Pairing Lethal to Boy,”
St. Petersburg Times
, August 23, 2006; D. J. Weatherall and J. B. Clegg, “Inherited Haemoglobin Disorders: An Increasing Global Health Problem,”
Bulletin of the World Health Organization
79, no. 8 (2001): 704.

 
30
. J. D. Smyth,
Introduction to Animal Parasitology
, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 126–35.

 
31
. Sallares,
Malaria and Rome
, 12.

 
32
. Ibid.

 
33
. Warrell and Gilles, eds.,
Essential Malariology
, 26–27.

 
34
. Ibid., 24–25.

 
35
. Carter and Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,” 564–94.

 
36
. Ibid.

 
37
. Sallares,
Malaria and Rome
, 151, citing Garnham 1966.

 
38
. Warrell and Gilles, eds.,
Essential Malariology
, 24–25.

 
39
. Carter and Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,” 564–94.

 
40
. Ibid.

 
41
. Sir Malcolm Watson,
African Highway: The Battle for Health in Central Africa
(London: John Murray Publishers, 1953), 232.

 
42
. Nina L. Etkin, “The Co-evolution of People, Plants, and Parasites: Biological and Cultural Adaptations to Malaria,”
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
62 (2003): 311–17; James L. A. Webb, “Malaria and the Peopling of Early Tropical Africa,”
Journal of World History
16, no. 3 (2005): 269–91.

 
43
. Francisco J. Ayala and Mario Coluzzi, “Chromosome Speciation: Humans,
Drosophila,
and Mosquitoes,”
PNAS
102, suppl. 1 (May 3, 2005), 6535–42.

 
44
. Mario Coluzzi, “The Clay Feet of the Malaria Giant and Its African Roots: Hypotheses and Inferences About Origin, Spread, and Control of
Plasmodium falciparum
,”
Parassitologia
41 (1999): 277–83.

 
45
. Ayala and Coluzzi, “Chromosome Speciation,” 6535–42.

 
46
. Sallares,
Malaria and Rome
, 25.

 
47
. Institute of Medicine,
Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance
(Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2004), 144.

 
48
. Kwiatkowski, “How Malaria Has Affected the Human Genome and What Human Genetics Can Teach Us About Malaria,” 171–90.

 
49
. Carter and Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,” 564–94.

 
50
. Kwiatkowski, “How Malaria Has Affected the Human Genome,” 171–90.

 
51
. Weatherall and Clegg, “Inherited Haemoglobin Disorders,” 704–12.

 
52
. Siske S. Struik and Eleanor M. Riley, “Does Malaria Suffer from Lack of Memory?”
Immunological Reviews
201 (2004): 268–90.

 
53
. Hackett,
Malaria in Europe
, 172.

 
54
. Interview with Dr. Simon Glover, QEH, Blantyre, Malawi, February 21, 2007; Beare et al., “Malarial Retinopathy,” 790–97.

 
55
. Kwiatkowski, “How Malaria Has Affected the Human Genome,” 171–90.

 
56
. Ibid.

 
57
. C. Dobano et al., “Expression of Merozoite Surface Protein Markers by
Plasmodium falciparum
–infected Erythrocytes in Peripheral Blood and Tissues of Children with Fatal Malaria,”
Infection and Immunity
75, no. 2 (February 2007): 643–52.

 
58
. Warrell and Gilles, eds.,
Essential Malariology
, 206.

 
59
. Estimate is of one million deaths from malaria every year, 700,000 to 900,000 of which occur among African children under the age of five.

   
1
. “The Kingdom of Thirst,”
New York Times
, March 27, 1884.

   
2
. Address by Peter Asoka, Fourth MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference, November 2005, Yaoundé, Cameroon.

   
3
. James L. A. Webb, “Malaria and the Peopling of Early Tropical Africa,”
Journal of World History
16, no. 3 (2005): 269–91.

   
4
. R. L. Miller et al., “Diagnosis of
Plasmodium falciparum
Infections in Mummies Using the Rapid Manual
Para
Sight-F Test,”
Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
88 (1994): 31–32.

   
5
. Leonard Jan Bruce-Chwatt and Julian de Zulueta,
The Rise and Fall of Malaria in Europe: A Historico-epidemiological Study
(Oxford: Oxford University Press/Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization, 1980), 17.

   
6
. Robert S. Desowitz,
The Malaria Capers: More Tales of Parasites and People, Research and Reality
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 150.

   
7
. Richard Carter and Kamini Mendis, “Evolutionary and Historical Aspects of the Burden of Malaria,”
Clinical Microbiology Reviews
15, no. 4 (October
2002): 564–94, quoting from H. E. Sigerist,
A History of Medicine, Volume 1: Primitive and Archaic Medicine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1951).