Plasmodium Malariae - Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Each year, approximately 500 million people will be infected with malaria worldwide Of those infected, roughly two million will die from the disease. Malaria is caused by five Plasmodium species: Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium knowlesi. At any one time, an estimated 300 million people are said to be infected with at least one of these Plasmodium species and so there is a great need for the development of effective treatments for decreasing the yearly mortality and morbidity rates.

P. malariae is the one of the least studied of the five species that infect humans, in part because of its low prevalence and milder clinical manifestations compared to the three other species. It is widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, much of southeast Asia, Indonesia, on many of the islands of the western Pacific and in areas of the Amazon Basin of South America. In endemic regions, prevalence ranges from less than 4% to more than 20%, but there is evidence that P. malariae infections are vastly underreported.