International collaborative research can benefit both the American public and the people of the host country. Health conditions in other countries and in the United States are in many ways interdependent, not only because of the potential for transmission of emerging diseases, but also because of the indirect effects of poor health on world economy, environment, and population growth.
Malaria is one tropical disease with a worldwide impact.
Although rare in the United States, this parasitic disease kills three million people worldwide each year, most of them children. A third of the world's population, about 1.8 billion people, live in areas where the incidence of malaria was once reduced or even eliminated, but today is rising. Parasitic resistance to chloroquine, the most common and inexpensive drug to prevent malaria infection as well as to treat infected people, is responsible for much of this increase in cases. Several species of malaria parasites can infect humans. All are transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito and cause disease by attacking red blood cells.