| Year | Event type | Event | Geographic location |
|---|
| 150,000,000 BC | Origin | Probable origin of malaria during the Jurassic; at this time malaria infects reptiles.[2] | Africa |
| 8000 BC | Origin | Malaria starts to infect people, as the first big groups of population emerge.[2] | Africa |
| 2000-1500 BC | Spread | Malaria spreads out of Africa through Egypt. Sumerian and Egyptian doctors describe symptoms resembling those of malaria.[2] | Middle East |
| 1000-1500 | Spread | Malaria reaches northern Europe, where it is very poorly understood. At this epoch of the Middle Ages, witchcraft and astrology are used to attempt to cure malaria.[2] | Europe |
| 1600s | Discovery | Malaria reaches the Americas through Spanish colonization. The native population in Peru makes use of bark of the cinchona tree for treating fever.[9] After its discovery by the Spanish, the bark is brought to Europe where it comes into general use.[9][10] | South America, Spain, Italy |
| 1717 | Discovery | Epidemiologist Giovanni Maria Lancisi relates the prevalence of malaria in swampy areas to the presence of flies and recommends swamp drainage to prevent it.[11] | Italy |
| 1874 | Discovery | Othmar Zeidler is credited with the first synthesis of DDT (Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane).[12] DDT is used in the second half of World War II to control malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. After the war, DDT is also used as an agricultural insecticide. | Strasbourg |
| 1880 | Discovery | Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran observes parasites inside the red blood cells of infected people for the first time, proposing that malaria is caused by an organism. For this he receives the Nobel Prize in 1907.[13] | Algeria |
| 1881 | Discovery | Carlos Finlay provides strong evidence that a mosquito later designated as Aedes aegypti transmits disease to and from humans.[14] The theory remains controversial for twenty years until confirmed in 1901 by Walter Reed.[15] | Cuba |
| 1895-1898 | Discovery | Ronald Ross proves that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, and lays the foundation for the method of combating the disease. For this he receives the Nobel Prize in 1902.[13] | India |
| 1903 | Organization | The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene is founded. Today worldwide yet foccused on developed countries, research, health care and education are its main activities.[16] | Philadelphia (serving worldwide) |
| 1913 | Organization | The Rockefeller Foundation is created, and through one of its branches, the International Health Division, it starts to conduct campaigns against malaria, in addition to yellow fever, and hookworm.[17] | New York |
| 1939 | Discovery | Organochloride DDT's insecticidal properties are discovered by Paul Hermann Müller, who is awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. [18] In the following decades, total eradication of malaria is achieved in most of the developed world due to massive agricultural application of DDT.[6] | Europe, North America |
| 1940 | Achievement | Complete eradication of A. gambiae from northeast Brazil and thus from the New World is achieved by the systematic application of the arsenic-containing compound Paris green to breeding places, and of pyrethrum spray-killing to adult resting places.[19] | Brazil |
| 1948 | Organization | The World Health Organization (WHO) forms.[20] | Geneva (operates worldwide) |
| 1955 | Organization | WHO launches the Malaria Eradication Programme[19] | Worldwide |
| 1962-present | Publication | Rachel Carson publishes the science book Silent Spring which treates the detrimental effects on the environment by the use of pesticides. The book has a massive impact in international politics, thus provoking the ban of DDT in many countries during the following decades. Carson continues to be criticized today by some who argue that such restrictions have caused tens of millions of needless deaths. [21][22][23] |
| 1967-1981 | Organization | The secret military Project 523 of the People's Republic of China is aimed at finding new drugs for malaria. Over 500 Chinese scientists are recruited. Discovery of artemisinin and derivatives,[24] also pyronardine, lumefantrine and naphthoquine. All these antimalarial drugs are used today in therapy.[25] | China, Vietnam |
| 1970 | Organization | Population Services International is created as a nonprofit global health organization with programs targeting malaria, child survival, HIV, and reproductive health. PSI provides life-saving products, clinical services and behavior change communications.[26] | Washington, D.C. (operates worldwide) |
| 1987 | Scientific breakthrough | Colombian biochemist Manuel Elkin Patarroyo develops the first synthetic vaccine against P. falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria.[13] | Colombia |
| 1992 | Organization | Malaria Foundation International (MFI) is founded as a non-profit organization dedicated to the fight against malaria. The MFI’s goals are to support awareness, education, training, research, and leadership programs to develop and apply tools to combat the disease. | |
| 1998 | Organization | Malaria Research and Reference Reagent Resource Center (MR4) is launched to provide resources like malaria reagents, protocols and technical support to the international research community. It is funded by the (NIAID).[16] | |
| 2000 | Organization | The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is founded by Bill and Melinda Gates with the aims of enhancing healthcare and reduce extreme poverty at a global level. Today it is the largest private foundation in the world, having donated over one billion dollars on malaria alone.[27][28] | Seattle (operates worldwide) |
| 2001 | Organization | The Amazon Malaria Initiative is launched with the goal of preventing and controlling malaria in the Amazon basin. With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, it has expanded into eleven countries.[16] | Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Bolivia, Venezuela (ceased participation), Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. |
| 2002 | Organization | The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is founded as an international financing institution dedicated to attract and fund additional resources to stop and treat those diseases.[16] | Geneva |
| 2002 | Organization | The African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) is established. Its main goal is vaccine development, although it has expanded its aims, including other intervention measures such as antimalaria drugs and vector control.[16] | Dar es Salaam (operates in Africa) |
| 2003 | Organization | The Malaria Consortium is founded as a non-profit organization dedicated to the control of malaria.[16] | London (operates in Africa and Asia) |
| 2004 | Organization | Against Malaria Foundation is set up with the aim of handling money and raising funds.[16] Much of the funds raised by it are used to purchase bednets. GiveWell, an independent charity evaluator, names AMF its top-rated charity worldwide in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015, and recommends to donors to donate exclusively to AMF in 2015 due to its large funding gap.[29] | London (operates in Africa) |
| 2004 | Organization | Malaria World is founded with the aims at making free and unrestricted access to information on malaria.[16] | |
| 2006 | Organization | Malaria No More is founded. It has partnerships and focuses in advocacy to elevate malaria on the global health agenda.[16] | Seattle (operates worldwide) |
| 2006 | Organization | The United Nations Foundation creates the Nothing but Nets campaign to prevent malaria deaths by purchasing, distributing, and teaching the proper use of mosquito bed nets.[30] | Sub-Saharan Africa |
| 2008 | Organization | The Innovative Vector Control Consortium is established as a research consortium. It focuses on the development of new insecticides for public health vector control and also information systems and tools in order to enable new and existing pesticides to be used more effectively.[16] | UK, USA, South Africa |
| 2009 | Organization | The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) is founded by African Heads of State to use their individual and collective power to keep malaria high on the political and policy agenda.[16] | Africa |
| 2013-2015 | Organization | Dundee University establishes a center for development of drugs. A new anti-malaria drug is obtained.[31][32] | Dundee (Scotland) |
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