The next big killer that may be beaten is malaria, which was endemic to almost every country in the world in 1900 and killed about two million a year. At that stage, rich countries drained swamps and ditched marshy areas to remove breeding sites for the mosquitoes that carry the parasite. This and the widespread use of insecticides such as DDT eradicated malaria in more than 100 countries. After a recent push by the Gates Foundation and other groups, there is now a chance that malaria could be beaten globally in the next few decades. Between 2000 and 2015 malaria death rates around the world
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