Malariologist

In its more exact definition, a malariologist is a health-science worker dedicated to the study and understanding [Page 1053]of malaria and its interacting factors in an integral form. These professionals could be physicians, biologists, pharmaceuticals, laboratorists, nurses, public health bachelors or technicians, sociologists, engineers, environmentalists, and geographers, among others, with significant training and experience, working against malaria, particularly in public health control programs.

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran could well be considered as the first world malariologist. In 1880, he observed moving bodies (gametocytes, sexual stage of the parasite) in fresh blood of a patient with malaria. Other pioneers in the field include a number of noted doctors: H. Meckel, Rudolf Virchow, Göre Frerichs, Robert Koch, Reid Gerhardt, Patrick Manson, Ronald Ross, Amico Bignami, Giovanni Batista Grassi, Julius Wag-ner-Jauregg, C. Garret-Jones, E.W. Davidson, Camillo Golgi, J. Hamon, Russell MacDonald, William Trager, Leonidas Deane, Arnoldo Gabaldón, Paul Müller, Manuel Patarroyo, B. Galvão, R.G. Damásceno, M.J. Pinto, and Oswaldo Forattini, among others.

Four of them have received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their significant contributions in the malariology science: Ross in 1902, Laveran in 1907, Wagner-Jauregg in 1927, and Müller in 1948.

Today, malariologists still need to do further work, given the current burden of disease, and it is necessary to increase the number of people working against this disease that affects the more uncared for populations in the world.