Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.
About Malaria
Malaria is a serious disease caused by a parasite. You get it when an infected mosquito bites you. Malaria is a major cause of death worldwide, but it is almost wiped out in the United States. The disease is mostly a problem in developing countries with warm climates. If you travel to these countries, you are at risk. There are four different types of malaria caused by four related parasites. The most deadly type occurs in Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
Malaria symptoms include chills, flu-like symptoms, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and jaundice. A blood test can diagnose it. It can be life-threatening. However, you can treat malaria with drugs. The type of drug depends on which kind of malaria you have and where you were infected.
Malaria can be prevented. When traveling to areas where malaria is found:
- See your doctor for medicines that protect you
- Wear insect repellent with DEET
- Cover up
- Sleep under mosquito netting
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
It sits within Blood, Heart and Circulation and Infections.
The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.
Research on Malaria
1,471 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.
What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.
Research currently under way
- This is a Clinical Study to Assess Whether the Combination of SJ733 and Tafenoquine Will be a Safe and Rapidly Acting Anti-malarial for the Radical Cure of P. Vivax MalariaR. Kiplin Guy
- Induced Blood-Stage Malaria in Healthy Malaria-Naive Adults to Assess the Safety and Infectivity of Plasmodium Vivax Challenge Agent and Evaluate Transmission in Mosquito Feeding AssaysNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
- Southeast Asia Dose Optimization of TafenoquineUniversity of Oxford
- Laboratory Evaluation of Pregnancy Malaria Vaccine Candidates/In-vitro Testing of Pregnancy Malaria Vaccine CandidatesNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
- Challenge Trial of PfSPZ-LARC2 Vaccine in Burkina FasoSanaria Inc.
- Collection of Human Biospecimens for Basic and Clinical Research Into Globin VariantsNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Research already completed
- Preventing Malaria in School Children to Protect the Whole Community in Rural Blantyre District, MalawiLiverpool School of Tropical Medicine
- Triple Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy for Delaying Drug Resistance Development - a Randomized Clinical TrialMuhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
- A Study to Assess the Safety and Effectiveness of Two Experimental Malaria VaccinesUniversity of Oxford
Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.
Where to read more
Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.
Start Here
- About MalariaCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- How Malaria SpreadsCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
Diagnosis and Tests
- Malaria TestsNational Library of Medicine
Treatments and Therapies
- Treatment of MalariaCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
Prevention and Risk Factors
- Choosing a Drug to Prevent MalariaCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- Malaria Risk Assessment for TravelersCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- Mefloquine (Lariam)Department of Veterans Affairs
Related Issues
- What to Know about Malaria in the U.S.Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Statistics and Research
- MalariaNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- Malaria Surveillance, United States, 2022Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- New Monoclonal Antibody Shows Promise for Preventing Malaria InfectionsUniversity of Maryland, School of Medicine
- Slowing Malaria by Treating MosquitoesNational Institutes of Health
Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov: MalariaNational Institutes of Health
Medical subject headings
Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Malaria. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.
This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Malaria, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.