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  • OUTLOOK

Malaria’s modelling problem

Southern Africa wants to eliminate the disease by 2030, but predicting where and when the disease will strike remains a challenge.
  1. Linda Nordling

    1. Linda Nordling is a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa.

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People holding large umbrellas walk across a makeshift wooden bridge over flood water in heavy rain

Heavy rainfall and flooding can create ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed. Credit: Jack McBrams/AFP via Getty

A series of unfortunate events in 2017 resulted in South Africa’s deadliest malaria season in more than a decade. Unseasonably late, heavy rains created the ideal conditions for the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite to breed. A shortage of test kits and a common antimalarial drug meant hospitals in the country’s north eastern Limpopo province were filled to overflowing with feverish patients. People reported seeing patients hooked up to intravenous malaria treatments and sleeping on hospital floors owing to a lack of beds.

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Nature 618, S34-S35 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02054-1

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Malaria, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

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