Please click on the button below to move on to this new site. Malaria is a serious, sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite. It occurs in over 100 countries and territories. Large areas of Central and South America, Hispaniola, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia, the Middle East and Oceania are considered malaria-risk areas. The World Health Organization estimates that yearly 300 - 500 million cases of malaria occur and more than 1 million people die of malaria.
Humans get malaria from the bite of a mosquito infected with malaria.
When a mosquito bites a person already infected with malaria, it ingests microscopic malarial parasites found in that persons blood. The parasites grow in the mosquito for about a week and then the infection is passed on to another person bitten by that same mosquito.