Deforestation and non-human primate malarias will be a threat to malaria elimination in the future: Insights from Southeast Asia

Abstract

Malaria continues to be a global public health problem although it has been eliminated from many countries. Sri Lanka and China are two countries that recently achieved malaria elimination status, and many countries in Southeast Asia are currently in the pipeline for achieving the same goal by 2030. However, Plasmodium knowlesi, a non-human primate malaria parasite continues to pose a threat to public health in this region, infecting many humans in all countries in Southeast Asia except for Timor-Leste. Besides, other non-human primate malaria parasite such as Plasmodium cynomolgi and Plasmodium inui are infecting humans in the region. The non-human primates, the long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques which harbour these parasites are now increasingly prevalent in farms and forest fringes close by to the villages. Additionally, the Anopheles mosquitoes belonging to the Lecuosphyrus Group are also present in these areas which makes them ideal for transmitting the non-human primate malaria parasites. With changing landscape and deforestation, non-human primate malaria parasites will affect more humans in the coming years with the elimination of human malaria. Perhaps due to loss of immunity, more humans will be infected as currently being demonstrated in Malaysia. Thus, control measures need to be instituted rapidly to achieve the malaria elimination status by 2030. However, the zoonotic origin of the parasite and the changes of the vectors behaviour to early biting seems to be the stumbling block to the malaria elimination efforts in this region. In this review, we discuss the challenges faced in malaria elimination due to deforestation and the serious threat posed by non-human primate malaria parasites.