Study links deforestation, malaria
New research conducted in Malaysia has drawn a link between deforestation and a rise in a specific strain of malaria often carried by macaques, a link the study’s lead author says could hold true for Cambodia as well.
The results of the study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases last week, found that deforestation in two districts of Malaysia was linked to “a steep rise of [plasmodium] knowlesi malaria”. The strain went from accounting for just 2 per cent of malaria cases in the districts studied to accounting for 62 per cent over nine years.
