Vaccines are still many years from development, due to little funding and the extraordinary complexity of the pathogen and its life cycle. Currently, all the inexpensive drugs for treatment of and protection from malaria are losing their effectiveness in the face of resistance strains. Latin America has made great strides since 1965 in terms of pursuing policies conducive to international trade and making government institutions more efficient and responsive to citizens, which this simple analysis suggests is crucial. Geography appears also to play and important role in Latin America's performance compared to the wealthiest countries. Improving health, including malaria, and overcoming other tropical and accessibility problems could help Latin America to catch up economically with the more developed countries in the world.
Life is short in the tropics.
Inhabitants of the temperate northern and southern ends of Latin America can expect to live about 75 years, but the trend line sags markedly in the tropical middle, dropping down to 65 years just south of the equator. The very low average lifespans, below 60 years, are all in the tropics, seeming to drip from the sagging trend line. The below-60 life expectancies are in provinces of Bolivia and Peru, and in Haiti. Poor health and poverty are closely linked. Bolivia and Haiti, with the low life expectancies, are poor countries.