History of malaria millennium BCE in Greece and China. For thousands of years, traditional herbal remedies have been used to treat malaria. The first effective treatment for malaria came from the bark of cinchona tree, which contains quinine. After the link to mosquitos and their parasites were identified in the early twentieth century, mosquito control measures such as widespread use of the insecticide DDT, swamp drainage, covering or oiling the surface of open water sources, indoor residual spraying and use of insecticide treated nets was initiated. Prophylactic quinine was prescribed in malaria endemic areas, and new therapeutic drugs, including chloroquine and artemisinins, were
Human genetic resistance to malaria ways that have a detrimental effect on the health or longevity of the individual. However, if the net effect of protection against malaria outweighs the other detrimental effects, the protective mutation will tend to be retained and propagated from generation to generation. These alterations which protect against malarial infections but impair red blood cells are generally considered blood disorders, since they tend to have overt and detrimental effects. Their protective function has only in recent times, been discovered and acknowledged. Some of these disorders are known by fanciful and cryptic names like sickle-cell anemia, thalassaemia, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, ovalocytosis, elliptocytosis