Malaria Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Malaria, including details on prevention, treatment, causes, mosquitoes.

Recommended Books on Malaria

Malaria: Poverty, Race, and Public Health in the United States

In Malaria: Poverty, Race, and Public Health in the United States, Margaret Humphreys presents the first book-length account of the parasitic, insect-borne disease that has infected millions and influenced settlement patterns, economic development, and the quality of life at every level of American society, especially in the south.

Humphreys approaches malaria from three perspectives: the parasite's biological history, the medical response to it, and the patient's experience of the disease. It addresses numerous questions including how the parasite thrives and eventually becomes vulnerable, how professionals came to know about the parasite and learned how to fight them, and how people view the disease and came to the point where they could understand and support the struggle against it.

In addition Malaria: Poverty, Race, and Public Health in the United States argues that malaria control was central to the evolution of local and federal intervention in public health, and demonstrates the complex interaction between poverty, race, and geography in determining the fate of malaria.

Malaria Parasite Biology, Pathogenesis, and Protection Today there are more than 500 million clinical cases of malaria worldwide and every 30 seconds a death is caused by malaria. Although significant advances have been made in our understanding of the basic biology, genetics, and pathogenesis of malaria, this information has not been available in an easily accessible form. Now this valuable new monograph, Malaria: Parasite Biology, Pathogenesis, and Protection brings it all together in one place to facilitate the rapid generation of new insights and interventions. Written by leading experts, each chapter serves as a thoughtful introduction to the area and provides a helpful set of references. Malaria: Parasite Biology, Pathogenesis, and Protection is a useful entry point for graduate and medical students, scientists, and physicians. It is also valuable reading for those individuals already engaged in a subspecialty of malaria research who want to know more about progress in other areas as well are those who are simply interested in getting a grasp on the present status of this ever-burgeoning public health problem.

Contextual Determinants of Malaria

As malaria and other tropical diseases continue their resurgence, questions about the potential impacts of environmental and demographic factors are becoming more critical. Recent attempts to understand the increase in malaria incidence often acknowledge the importance of social, economic and other contextual variables, but fail to explicitly incorporate them into models or consider how they evolve in relation to one another. This problem is of crucial interest to the climate policy community, which has been buffeted by claims and counter-claims concerning the impact of climate change on malaria.

This important volume examines the contextual determinants of malaria and attempts to develop methods for incorporating them into projections of future incidence. Internationally renowned health specialists, economists, and other social scientists provide regional and global perspectives on risk modeling, the history of eradication efforts, current determinants (including environmental, social, and economic factors), and prospects for new vaccines and drugs.

The Contextual Determinants of Malaria argues that an association of climate change with increased malaria incidence will have at least as much to do with aging, poverty, urbanization, and population movement as with a rise in global temperatures. By placing climate in this perspective, The Contextual Determinants of Malaria focuses attention on the public health needs most critical in both the immediate and long-term future. It encourages multidisciplinary analysis of malaria control, and improves our understanding of the interactions of the diverse range of factors involved in the incidence and spread of the disease.

Malaria Control in Complex Emergencies: An Inter Agency Field Handbook This inter-agency handbook focuses on effective malaria control responses to complex emergencies, particularly during the acute phase when reliance on international humanitarian assistance is greatest. It provides policy-makers, planners, field programme managers and medical coordinators with practical guidance on designing and implementing measures to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality. Such measures must address the needs of both the displaced and the host populations and must accommodate the changes in those needs as an acute emergency evolves into a more stable situation. A glossary is provided at the beginning of the handbook and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of several chapters.

Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy Malaria and Rome is the first comprehensive book on the history of malaria in Roman Italy. Aimed at an interdisciplinary readership, it explores the evolution and ecology of malaria, its medical and demographic effects on human populations in antiquity, its social and economic effects, the human responses to it, and the human interpretations of it.

PDQ Travelers' Malaria (Pdq) This handy reference guide answers essential questions about malaria taken from the authors extensive experience in the research laboratory and in the clinic setting. The book covers a wide range of topics including a brief historical outline of malaria epidemiology, detailed information on anti-malarial drugs, the strategies of chemoprophylaxis and stand-by emergency treatment, discussion of the Anopheles vector and measures against mosquito bites. The second half of the manual is a color atlas of known endemic countries showing risk areas and malaria-free zones. Designed as a pre-travel reference text, the manual will prove useful for travel agents, members of the World Tourism Organization, and health professionals giving travel medicine advice.

Traditional Medicinal Plants and Malaria (Traditional Herbal Medicines for Modern Times, V. 4) Malaria is an increasing worldwide threat, with more than three hundred million infections and one million deaths every year. The world’s poorest are the worst affected, and many treat themselves with traditional herbal medicines. These are often more available and affordable, and sometimes are perceived as more effective than conventional antimalarial drugs.

The first book to be published on this subject, Traditional Medicinal Plants and Malaria explores the evidence for the safety and efficacy of some of these traditional medicines, and presents practical guidelines for designing studies on traditional plant-based antimalarial medicines, mosquito repellents, and insecticides. Systematic reviews of the literature and consensus guidelines form the main body of the book. Ethnomedical, ethnobotanical, pharmacological, phytochemical, toxicological, and clinical aspects of herbal antimalarials are also reviewed. These are supplemented by case studies of the most well-known traditional antimalarials.

Molecular Approaches to Malaria Molecular Approaches to Malaria provides an overview of the rapid and significant developments that have occurred in malaria research, including the 2002 genome sequencing of Plasmodium falciparum and its mosquito vector, Anopheles gambiae. An important resource for molecular biologists, biochemists, cell biologists, chemists, pathologists, parasitologists, entomologists, and immunologists. Molecular Approaches to Malaria is a single reference source that will serve likewise to update teachers, investigators, and public health officials on the status of malaria research.

Essential Malariology This concise text provides an overview of the wide-ranging field of malariology. It includes readable introductory chapters on the basic sciences; practical information on the diagnosis and clinical manifestations of malaria in various patient groups (including children, pregnant women, adults); a comprehensive guide to pharmacology and treatment of malaria, and a review of the current status in malaria vaccine development.

Immunology and Immunopathogenesis of Malaria (Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology)

Malaria is still a major global health problem, killing more than 1 million people every year. Almost all of these deaths are caused by Plasmodium falciparum, one of the four species of malaria parasites infecting humans. This high burden of mortality falls heavily on Sub-Saharan Africa, where over 90% of these deaths are thought to occur, and 5% of children die before the age of 5 years. The death toll from malaria is still growing, with malaria-specific mortality in young African children estimated to have doubled during the last twenty years. This increase has been associated with drug resistance of the parasite, spread of insecticide resistant mosquitoes, poverty, social and political upheaval, and lack of effective vaccines.

This collection of reviews addresses many of these important issues of malarial immunity and immunopathology. They are of interest not only to malariologists, but hopefully also to the broader immunological community. Strong interactions with, and feedback from immunologists working in other infectious diseases and in basic immunology will help us to move the field of malaria immunology and therapeutic intervention forward more quickly.

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