Man-made waterways contribute to malaria breeding grounds, study suggests

A recent study, conducted by Elizabeth Whitcombe, visiting senior research scholar at the earth system science interdisciplinary center at the University of Maryland, and published in the May 13 issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, "mapped meteorological, irrigation and medical reports during British rule in India" and concluded modern-day India should learn lessons from the past to improve engineering plans and epidemiological "modeling of environmental factors controlling vector borne disease," especially malaria, SciDev.Net reports. "Ashvin Kumar Gosain, professor at the department of civil engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, however, disagreed that scientists were ignoring the link between irrigation and disease," according to the news service. "Studies are being done even now and the linkage between river flows and disease is being studied once again in the context of climate change," he said, SciDev.Net reports (Sreelata, 5/4).