Episode Information

Today, malaria kills twice as many people as AIDS: some 4 million a year. 2 billion people live in regions with malaria, 700 million of them are infected. But this disease’s progress is being marked by relative indifference, perhaps because the countries most badly affected are least able to fund the sort of research which is necessary. But, while malaria was eradicated in Europe in the 1950s, it is now thought possible that global warming will lead to its return, and cases have already been found in the south of the Eastern bloc. This programme explains the basics of the disease: the different strains which variously cause exhaustion and death, tthe history of treatment from witch doctors to modern pharmaceuticals, and the political and economic aspects of the crisis. Why did the attempt to add malaria to the G8’s agenda fail, even though 90 countries are affected? Why has so little money been invested in the fight against this plague? What does the future hold?