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A historical perspective on malaria control in Brazil
Griffing, Sean Michael; Tauil, Pedro Luiz; Udhayakumar, Venkatachalam & Silva-Flannery, Luciana
Abstract
Malaria has always been an important public health problem in Brazil. The early history of Brazilian malaria and
its control was powered by colonisation by Europeans and the forced relocation of Africans as slaves. Internal migration
brought malaria to many regions in Brazil where, given suitable Anopheles mosquito vectors, it thrived. Almost
from the start, officials recognised the problem malaria presented to economic development, but early control efforts
were hampered by still developing public health control and ignorance of the underlying biology and ecology of malaria.
Multiple regional and national malaria control efforts have been attempted with varying success. At present, the
Amazon Basin accounts for 99% of Brazil’s reported malaria cases with regional increases in incidence often associated
with large scale public works or migration. Here, we provide an exhaustive summary of primary literature in English,
Spanish and Portuguese regarding Brazilian malaria control. Our goal was not to interpret the history of Brazilian
malaria control from a particular political or theoretical perspective, but rather to provide a straightforward, chronological
narrative of the events that have transpired in Brazil over the past 200 years and identify common themes.
Keywords
Brazil; malaria; Plasmodium; vivax; falciparum; drug resistance; control; history
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