Study: Malaria-preventive drugs dramatically reduce infections in school children

With nearly half of the world's population at risk for life-threatening malaria infections, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers and their colleagues identified an important public health measure to control the disease. Use of preventive antimalarial treatments reduces by half the number of malaria infections among schoolchildren, according to a new analysis published today in The Lancet Global Health. Preventive treatment also reduces cases of anemia among schoolchildren by 15 percent and is associated with improved learning in children older than 10 years.