Antimalarial Drug Supply Issues during the Second World War
Abstract Malaria was a major cause of casualties during World War II in the Southwest Pacific, and drug supply issues were acute strategic concerns. The capture of the cinchona plantations of Indonesia by the Japanese Imperial Army and the lack of manufacturing capacity for synthetic substitutes were significant logistical constraints that limited Allied combat operations […]
Malaria Epidemics in Refugees During Armed Conflict
Abstract: Refugees displaced from their usual residence by military conflict may generate malaria epidemics when moving into endemic areas. Examples from the 1980s include Khmer refugees from Cambodia into Thailand and Afghan refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan. In both cases, civilians with little malaria experience were exposed to both P. vivax and P. falciparum malaria. […]
Malaria Determined Military Outcomes in Burma (Myanmar) Across Three Centuries
Abstract Disease has often determined the outcome of tropical military campaigns. This is especially true in Burma (Myanmar), where entire armies have been incapacitated by fever thought to be due to malaria during the Sino-Burmese Wars (1765–1769), the Anglo-Burmese Wars (especially the first in 1824–1826) and World War II (1942–1945) when the British 14th Army […]
Plasmodium knowlesi infection in an Australian soldier following jungle warfare training in Malaysia
Abstract: An Australian Army soldier developed a fever after returning to Australia following a three-month deployment to Rifle Company Butterworth, Malaysia. Ten days prior to presentation he had participated in jungle warfare training at Burma Camp, Pulada in Johor, Malaysia. No known direct contact was made with monkeys, which were known to be in the […]
‘A near-run thing’: The foundation and early years of 1 Malaria Research Laboratory, forerunner of the Australian Army Malaria Institute, 1963–1969 (Part 4 of ‘Pioneers of Australian military malariology’)
Ian Howie-Willis Abstract During the 25 years following World War II, malaria re-emerged as a major threat to Australian military personnel deployed to malarious regions in South-East Asia. By 1952, malariologists in Britain knew that drug-resistant strains of the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax had emerged in Malaya.[i] Successive contingents of Australian soldiers […]
Australian malariology during World War II (Part 3 of ‘Pioneers of Australian military malariology’)
Ian Howie-Willis Abstract This is the third part in a five-part series on the development of Australian military malariology during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Part 1, which appeared in JMVH 24(1) in January 2016, traced the course taken by Australian malariology between the South African (‘Boer’) War of 1898–1902 and the early 1920s […]
The Army Malaria Institute: Fifty Years of Esteemed “Vampire” Service
J. Pearn Abstract The Golden Jubilee (2016) of the Army Malaria Institute is a significant event in the history not only of the Australian Defence Force, but that of the Australian nation. The Institute’s research – entomological, pharmacological, epidemiological and clinical – has been crucial in the maintenance of optimal healthcare for every operational and humanitarian deployment of […]