The history of 20th century malaria control in Peru

Abstract

Malaria has been part of Peruvian life since at least the 1500s. While Peru gave the world quinine, one of the first treatments for malaria, its history is pockmarked with endemic malaria and occasional epidemics. In this review, major increases in Peruvian malaria incidence over the past hundred years are described, as well as the human factors that have facilitated these events, and concerted private and governmental efforts to control malaria. Political support for malaria control has varied and unexpected events like vector and parasite resistance have adversely impacted morbidity and mortality. Though the ready availability of novel insecticides like DDT and efficacious medications reduced malaria to very low levels for a decade after the post eradication era, malaria reemerged as an important modern day challenge to Peruvian public health. Its reemergence sparked collaboration between domestic and international partners towards the elimination of malaria in Peru.

Figure 1

This figure reports annual estimated malaria cases in total and by species, when available. It also reports a number of significant events in Peruvian malaria control. Estimate quality likely varies based on multiple unmeasured factors. For example, the 1939 estimate may have occurred prior to suitable infrastructure. In addition, numbers reported for 1991–1994 and 1996–1999 were based on visual estimates from line and bar graphs and are reported for qualitative analysis [2,4-7].