Postscript on Kenya, climate change and malaria

The previous post on this web site analysed a recent DFID press release on malaria and climate change.

I’ve been sent three recent papers by scientists in Kenya dealing with the epidemiology of malaria. Links to two of these articles are provided below. These documents show that the DFID assertion that malaria is increasing in highland regions of Kenya is highly questionable and that overall malaria rates are probably decreasing, although the geographic picture is complex. They also demonstrate that rates of infection respond to simple but well-targeted interventions. Eradicating malaria from Africa is a difficult target but not one without hope of success.

Climate change doesn’t make getting rid of malaria any easier. But blaming rising temperatures for high infection rates is carelessly avoiding the real issues: poor public health provision in some parts of Africa, land use change and inadequate availability or use of insecticide treated nets.

• Abdisalan M. Noor and others, ‘The risks of malaria infection in Kenya in 2009′, BMC Infectious Diseases, 9.180 (2009) http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-9-180 (doi:10.1186/1471-2334-9-180).
• Emelda A. Okiro and others, ‘Malaria paediatric hospitalization between 1999 and 2008 across Kenya’, BMC Medicine, 7.75 (2009) http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-7-75 (doi:10.1186/1741-7015-7-75).