Loss of rain forest leads to malaria spike, Univ. of Wisconsin researchers find

[Ed Barrow]

Chopping down the rain forest can harm animals such as toucans, golden lion tamarind monkeys and poison dart frogs. Now add another species to the list - humans.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon can lead to malaria epidemics years later, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings are some of the most detailed yet to link environmental changes with the spread of disease.

The work, published Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, combined malaria case reports with high-resolution satellite imagery from a remote, sparsely populated region of tropical Brazil about half the size of Rhode Island. For every square kilometer of forest cut down, the number of malaria cases reported spiked by 50%, the study found.

The work "points out how tropical forest conservation can be important for human health," said UW-Madison epidemiologist Sarah Olson, lead author of the study.


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