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Malaria is an infectious disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum parasites and spread between humans by Anopheles mosquitoes. It is one of the most common infectious diseases and one of the largest public health problems, particularly in tropical and subtropical areas such as Africa and Asia. Approximately 40% of the world’s population is at risk of developing malaria, with more than 500 million people becoming seriously ill and 2 million people dying from it each year.

Malaria has infected humans for at least 50,000 years and may have been infecting humans throughout their entire history. The first recorded treatment for malaria was the bark of the cinchona tree, which contains the chemical quinine. This tree grows in the Andes and was used by the people living in Peru as a means of treating and controlling malaria. Spanish Jesuits learned of this treatment when they arrived in the New World and brought it back to Europe in the 1640’s. Two French chemists, Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou, extracted quinine from the bark in 1820.

The first major scientific advancement regarding the study of malaria was made in 1880 by Alphonse Laveran, a French military physician working in Algeria. Whilst carrying out autopsies on those that had died, he observed for the first time the parasites which caused malaria in the red blood cells of the victims. This parasite was studied further and named Plasmodium falciparum by two Italian scientists, Ettore Marchiafava and Angelo Celli.
The British doctor Ronald Ross proved in 1898 that malaria was spread between humans by mosquitoes. He did this by allowing mosquitoes to bite patients with malaria and then dissecting their stomachs to find black granules, known as oocytes which characterized the disease. This proved the link between mosquitoes and malaria. He continued his research and was able to establish the role that mosquitoes play in transmission and the life cycle of...