Malaria is a continuing danger to UK travellers
New figures from the Health Protection Agency show that there were 1758 cases of malaria reported in UK travellers in 2006. Eight of these cases were fatal. 386 of the cases were due to the potentially fatal Plasmodium falciparum which is a major international health risk and which kills more than a million people a year in Africa. 219 were due to Plasmodium vivax which causes a debilitating disease, but is rarely fatal. Where the reason for travel is known, 57% of the malaria cases reported in the UK were in people visiting friends and relatives in the tropics. According to Professor Peter Chiodini, a malaria expert at the HPA:
It is a common misconception that people who were born in places where malaria is rife and who now live in the UK, have immunity to malaria. This is not the case because they very quickly lose the partial immunity they might have acquired whilst they lived there, and people who have never lived in these countries have no immunity. It is particularly important that people are aware that they are at risk if they do not follow advice on malaria prevention.
