History of Malaria Timeline

In 1717, the dark pigmentation of a postmortem spleen and brain was published by the epidemiologist Giovanni Maria Lancisi in his malaria textbook De noxiis paludum effluviis eorumque remediis.

Image source: Giovanni Maria Lancisi

In 1848, German anatomist Johann Heinrich Meckel recorded black-brown pigment granules in the blood and spleen of a patient who had died in a mental hospital.

The causal relationship of pigment to the parasite was established in 1880, when French physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, working in the military hospital of Constantine, Algeria, observed pigmented parasites inside the red blood cells of people with malaria. The discovery remained controversial until the development of the oil immersion lens in 1884 and superior staining methods in 1890-1891. Laveran was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on protozoa causing diseases.

Image source: Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran

Paul Ehrlich in 1880 described the use of "neutral" dyes—mixtures of acidic and basic dyes—for the differentiation of cells in peripheral blood smears.

Image source: Paul Ehrlich

In 1885, Ettore Marchiafava, Angelo Celli and Camillo Golgi studied the reproduction cycles in human blood (Golgi cycles). In 1886 Golgi described morphological differences still used to distinguish Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae. Sakharov in 1889 and Marchiafava & Celli in 1890 independently identified Plasmodium falciparum as a distinct species. In 1892, Marchiafava and Bignami proved the multiple forms seen by Laveran were from a single species.

Image source: Camillo Golgi

Dutch physician Pieter Pel first proposed a tissue stage of the malaria parasite in 1886, presaging its discovery by over 50 years. This suggestion was reiterated in 1893 when Golgi suggested the parasites might have an undiscovered tissue phase in endothelial cells, supported again by Pel in 1896.

Image source: Apicomplexan life cycle

In 1891, Ernst Malachowski and Dmitri Leonidovich Romanowsky independently developed techniques using a mixture of Eosin Y and modified methylene blue (methylene azure) that produced a shade of purple unattributable to either component.

Image source: Romanowsky stain

Britain's Sir Ronald Ross, an army surgeon working in Secunderabad, India, proved in 1897 that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, an event now commemorated by World Mosquito Day. He reported this to the British Medical Association in Edinburgh in 1898. Grassi, Bignami, Bastianelli and Marchiafava announced at the Accademia dei Lincei on Dec 4, 1898 that a healthy man contracted tertian malaria after being bitten by an experimentally infected Anopheles claviger. In 1898-1899 they observed the complete transmission cycle.

Image source: Ronald Ross

The existence of asexually-reproducing avian malaria parasites in cells of the internal organs was first demonstrated by Henrique de Beaurepaire Aragão in 1908. Huff and Bloom demonstrated exoerythrocytic stages of avian malaria in 1935, and Garnham described exoerythrocytic schizogony in Hepatocystis kochi in 1947.

Image source: Plasmodium

The first successful continuous malaria culture was established in 1976 by William Trager and James B. Jensen, enabling laboratory study of Plasmodium falciparum.

Image source: William Trager

In 1982, Krotoski et al reported identification of P. vivax hypnozoites in liver tissue, confirming decades-old speculation about dormant tissue forms of malaria parasites responsible for relapses.

Between 2018 and 2021, it was reported that vast numbers of non-circulating, non-hypnozoite parasites occur unobtrusively in tissues of P. vivax, supporting a paradigm-shifting viewpoint about recurrent infections that has prevailed since 2011.

Image source: Plasmodium vivax

The Austrian chemist Othmar Zeidler is credited with the first synthesis of DDT (DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane) in 1874.

Image source: DDT

An early effort at malaria prevention occurred in 1896 in Massachusetts, part of growing mosquito control efforts following anecdotal reports and the discovery in 1881 that mosquitoes vectored yellow fever.

Efforts to control malaria suffered a major setback in 1930 when entomologist Raymond Corbett Shannon discovered imported disease-bearing Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes living in Brazil. In 1938, their introduction caused the greatest epidemic of malaria ever seen in the New World. Eradication from northeast Brazil was achieved in 1940 using Paris green on breeding places and pyrethrum spray-killing of adults.

Image source: Anopheles gambiae

The insecticidal properties of DDT were identified in 1939 by chemist Paul Hermann Müller of Geigy Pharmaceutical. For his discovery of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods, he was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Samples of the chemical were acquired by the United States, Britain and Germany in the fall of 1942.

Image source: Paul Hermann Müller

The first field test in which residual DDT was applied to the interior surfaces of all habitations and outbuildings was carried out in central Italy in the spring of 1944.

In Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, between 1946 and 1951, the Rockefeller Foundation conducted a large-scale experiment to test the feasibility of the strategy of "species eradication" of an endemic malaria vector.

Malaria was effectively eliminated in the United States by the use of DDT in the National Malaria Eradication Program (1947-52).

Image source: National Malaria Eradication Program

In 1953, the World Health Organization launched an antimalarial program in parts of Liberia as a pilot project to determine the feasibility of malaria eradication in tropical Africa.

Image source: World Health Organization

The concept of eradication prevailed in 1955 at the Eighth World Health Assembly: DDT was adopted as a primary tool in the fight against malaria.

Image source: Malaria

Discussion opened in 1962 with Silent Spring, written by American biologist Rachel Carson, which launched the environmental movement in the West. DDT was banned for agricultural uses in the US in 1972, though never for non-agricultural uses such as malaria control.

Image source: Silent Spring

In the 21st century, Giemsa microscopy and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) became the two preferred diagnostic techniques for malaria.

Image source: Diagnosis of malaria

At the close of the 20th century, malaria remained endemic in more than 100 countries throughout the tropical and subtropical zones, including large areas of Central and South America, Hispaniola, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

In 2008, Nicholas White predicted that improved agricultural practices, selection of high-yielding hybrids, microbial production, and the development of synthetic peroxides would lower artemisinin prices.

Image source: Artemisinin

TheHill.com reported that there is a resurgence in malaria infections throughout the world in 2026, highlighting ongoing challenges despite decades of control efforts.