Strategies for malaria control: realities, magic, and science.

Abstract

I am commenting on methods for malaria eradication and control, while realizing my limitations in first‐hand experience with malaria‐control programs. I will not deal, therefore, with the potential impact of improvement of primary health care or the relative advantages and disadvantages of a vertical program organized centrally, as was the malaria eradication program of the 1950s and the 1960s. I will also not discuss economic considerations, although these are important. We are critical of economists for not considering the impact of health on development. Improvement of the standard of living of families in the developing world combined with health education is likely to have a marked effect on health. Who are more committed to the health of children than their parents? Because of my limited knowledge and experience in the above issues, I will draw strongly from the interaction of discoveries in the laboratory and their impact in the field and from my own experiences in the laboratory today.