Understanding the Epidemiology of Malaria in Zanzibar Through Molecular and Serological Analysis of Samples Collected During Reactive Case Detection.

Summary: Zanzibar is a group of islands that almost completely got rid of malaria. But lately, the number of people getting sick with malaria has started to go up again. Scientists wanted to find out why this was happening. They tested dried blood spots from ,1,618 people to check for different types of the malaria bug.

They found that over a third of the people (35%) had been exposed to malaria. More importantly, they discovered that different types of malaria—not just the most common one—are causing a lot of the sickness. This means health workers need to look for and treat all types of malaria to finally stop the disease.