Last week, the Maryland Department of Public Health announced a case of locally acquired malaria in a Maryland resident who lives in the greater Washington, D.C. area. The news, which comes on the heels of several locally acquired cases in Florida and Texas, is cause for some measured concern. Although all patients were promptly treated at area hospitals and are recovering, the recent cases are the first since 2003 to be caused by domestic mosquitoes that appear to have bitten one person with malaria and transmitted the parasite to another person.
Fortunately, malaria is both preventable and treatable, and the risk to Americans is very low. An efficient, comprehensive response led by state and local health departments with support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has all but eliminated the threat in Florida and Texas and will likely do the same in Maryland.
But focusing on the cases in Maryland, or Florida, or Texas, only tells one piece of a much larger story.
Read the full op-ed from the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator.