Great success has been achieved in malaria control in the past decade, with global malaria mortality cut by a quarter.
Its widespread use was highly successful in reducing malaria mortality but less efficacious in reducing the number of cases.
Between 2000-13, the worldwide malaria mortality rate decreased by 47%, and by 54% in Africa – where about 90% of malaria deaths occur.
If drug resistance spreads to Africa, where 90% of the world's 660,000 malaria deaths a year occur, experts at the Malaria 2012 Conference predicted that overall malaria mortality could increase by 25%.
The UN Development Programme says infant and child mortality rates have reduced dramatically; immunisation coverage has increased sharply; malaria mortality and morbidity have plummeted; and HIV prevalence has almost halved in a very short period of time.
"The announcement by the global fund that round 11 of funding would be cancelled raises enormous doubts as to whether the gains in malaria mortality reduction can be built on or even sustained," say the authors.
"Without significant investments in these new treatments, the malaria mortality rate in Africa and Asia could double in a few decades, as the drug now used most frequently is rendered useless by rapidly spreading resistance.
Insecticide treated bednets and anti-malarial medicine have already led to a 37% global decrease in malaria cases since 2000, and a 60% decline in the malaria mortality rate.
Using Punjab vital registration data and regression analysis it also tracks the marked decline in annual malaria mortality after 1908 with the control of famine, despite continuing post-monsoonal malaria transmission across the province.
This work reclaims the role of hunger in Punjab malaria mortality history and, in turn, raises larger epistemic questions regarding the adequacy of modern concepts of nutrition and epidemic causation in historical and demographic analysis.
The study establishes a time-series of annual malaria mortality estimates for each of the 23 plains districts of colonial Punjab province between 1868 and 1947 and for the early post-Independence years (1948-60) in (East) Punjab State.
