It is our contention that poor nutrition, either absence of nutrients or consumption of contaminated food or poisons, is a major contributor to the occurrence and severity of malaria. This is always the first topic we seek in MalariaWorld or other regular publications. And this week we were pleased to see in LinkedIn that this week there was a micronutrient conference in Ghana. It does not look like malaria was an issue addressed directly, but perhaps in the future it will be.
It has been three months since we featured articles from MalariaWorld that directly addressed malaria and nutrition. ‘Burden and co-occurrence of anemia, micronutrient deficiencies, inflammation, and malaria among women, adolescents, and children in Madagascar: a national cross-sectional survey’ by Rohner et al was published in The Journal of Nutrition featured on June 5. ‘The gut microbiome in early life predicts malaria susceptibility’ by Dutton et al was featured on July 10. More recently we also addressed the more general linkage to poverty that may suggest poor nutrition on July 31 and August 7. But nothing since.
Clearly nutrition is not a topic of major interest to mainstream malaria researchers. And this week there is link in MalariaWorld to the new World Health Organisation guidelines on malaria (September 2026). We searched for ‘nutrition’ in the 494 page pdf and found just four references. None addressed any linkage to occurrence or severity of malaria. ‘Larvivorous fish can serve as an additional source of nutrition’ was one. The second suggested combining Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in school-aged children in schools that provide nutrition services! The third reference was a word in the title of a steering committee member and fourth in the name, J. Nutrition, in a reference.
Malnutrition gets six hits, but all six in a paragraph with heading ‘Optimal antimalarial dosing in malnourished young children’. It admits ‘Studies of SP in IPTp and of amodiaquine monotherapy and dihydroartemisinin + piperaquine for treatment suggest reduced efficacy in malnourished children’, but nonetheless concludes ‘Although these findings are concerning, they are insufficient to warrant dose modifications (in mg/kg bw) of any antimalarial drug in patients with malnutrition.’
The effect of nutrition on health is not a money spinner for health providers and so is not likely to be studied. For most of us health problem are caused by too much food. In our case fasting for up to 72 hours or perhaps longer, can have great benefits. But there is little financial incentive for anyone to study it.
Malaria disappears in countries when poverty diminishes. This is unrelated to mosquito numbers or drug programmes.