Something New Out of Africa

Abstract

It is rare, in these days of magnetic resonance imaging and gene sequencing, for investigators to make advances in our understanding of a common disease on the basis of bedside clinical observations alone, yet Kevin Marsh and his colleagues, working on the Kenyan coast, have succeeded in doing this for malaria in African children.¹ Their contribution will have benefits both for preventive and for therapeutic programs.Malaria is flourishing. Despite efforts of clinicians, immunologists, entomologists, and pharmacologists, the death toll is rising. More than 3000 people die of malaria each day.² The early efforts to eradicate malaria have evolved into . . .