I caught three different kinds of malaria in the mid-1980 when I was doing some adventure travel into eastern Burma to write about the hill tribes guerrilla war against Rangoon. It nearly killed me.
I was faithfully taking the prophylactic drugs that were supposed to prevent malaria at the time, fansidar and chloroquine, but what I didn’t know was that the lack of malaria control and 40 years of war had bread a resistant strain that slowly overwhelmed my protection.
I barely made it back to Thailand and was hospitalized in Chaing Mai but the Malaria came back stateside where I was lucky to be treated by a doc who majored in tropical medicine and he finally stopped it. It took its toll though with anemia, memory loss, and the Vivax returning for years.
But all is well that ends well. I thank the Lord for my life today.
We need years of strong nationwide DDT application in swamps. And elsewhere. Kill the Anopheles Mosquitoes, stop malaria.
PS. DDT is harmless to humans.
I have a couple of elderly “white” Aunts who got malaria while they were kids living in Arkansas while helping their folks picking and chopping cotton.