Estimates of the number of annual deaths from Malaria differ quite widely. One of the reasons for this is that we still don’t have accurate records. One statistic often quoted is that, today, Malaria kills about one million people every year, most of them children.
Most people who die from Malaria are killed before they have a chance to reproduce, which means that the disease will have had a very significant impact on population.
Malaria is especially serious during pregnancy, leading to septic abortion, still birth, and poor health in newborns. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that low birth weight due to Malaria in pregnancy contributes significantly to infant mortality; therefore, babies conceived but born dead, and infant deaths indirectly due to Malaria are significant as well.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that during the first half of the 20th century, the world sustained around 2 million deaths from Malaria each year, so for that period alone, there were a hundred million deaths.
After that, mortality was halved by better treatment and eradication efforts.
Malaria Deaths Before 1900:
Malaria is the only one of the major epidemic killers of humans that is thought to have been with us throughout our entire evolution, so the death toll started right at the beginning, though numbers were likely low until we had permanent settlements with larger populations.
An interesting health warning by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1919 stated:
For the South as a whole it is safe to say that Typhoid Fever, Dysentery, Pellagra, and Tuberculosis, all together, are not as important as Malaria.
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