Examiner article: One night per month outside the city increases malaria risk nine times
Examiner.com: One night per month outside the city increases malaria risk nine times, U of M researchers find
By Vince Lamb, Detroit Science News Examiner
At least 350 million people contract malaria each year. About one million of them die. Most of those are children in sub-Saharan Africa. This week, scientists at the University of Michigan announced their latest findings in their efforts to control this dreaded disease, the most common parasitic infection of humans on the planet.
In a study published in American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, an international team of researchers that included members from the University of Michigan found that found that the greatest risk factor for a child living in an urban area in Kenya was whether the child spent at least one night a month in a rural area. Those children were nine times more likely to contract malaria.
In a press release, Mark Wilson, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Letters, Science, and the Arts, said, "We found that factors like house construction and mosquito coils weren't important, whereas traveling to rural areas was. That probably relates to the lack of the use of bed nets in those rural areas."
More findings, policy prescriptions, and a slideshow about malaria at the source in the headline.