Scientists Discover Malaria Came From Chimps

By Rachel Stockton (rachels@foodconsumer.org)

Ask the average person what disease jumped from chimpanzees to humans and continually morphs into something just beyond the reach of medical science, and he or she will likely say AIDS.

And, he or she would be right. But there is another disease out there that has been around for thousands of years, constantly changing, impervious to traditional vaccines: malaria. The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is currently reporting that scientists now believe that the disease passed from chimps to humans at least 10,000 years ago.

The disease has a rather colorful history. In 1880, a French army surgeon first discovered parasites in the blood of malaria patients. Six years later, an Italian neurophysiologist discovered that there were at least two forms of the disease. Ten years after that, a British officer allied with the Indian Medical Service discovered that malarial parasites were transmitted by mosquitoes.

According to the CDC website, the completion of the Panama Canal wouldn't have been possible had it not been for successful attempts to rein the disease in. In 1906, there were 26,000 workers on the project; 21,000 of them were hospitalized for the disease. Through an intense effort at insect and malarial control, the incidence of the disease was radically reduced.

Through the years, there have been a number of drugs developed that can cure malaria; Americans traveling overseas are urged to take an anti-malarial drug before leaving the country.

In spite of relatively successful attempts at controlling the disease, scientists have been at a loss when it comes to developing a vaccine that can prevent the onset of the disease in the first place. However, the discovery of the chimp-human link has researchers hopeful that they are one step closer to reaching that end.

According to WHO, the disease strikes 300 million people annually, killing between 1 and 3 million, mostly children in Africa who live south of the Sahara.