The One to Watch in 2008: Malaria Kills Thousands Each Day, Mainly in the World's Poorest Countries. but with Little Money to Be Made from Developing a Vaccine, a Cure Has Proved Elusive. at a Research Centre in Mozambique, the Work of One Man Offers Hope

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Westerners travelling to work in malarial regions used to be told that there was only one way to avoid catching the mosquito-borne disease: don't get bitten. It was by no means a foolproof method, but at least wealthy expats could afford preventative medicine and proper treatment if infected by the parasite. These, however, are not easily available options for many of the 500 million people in developing countries who catch malaria every year. Estimates vary, but somewhere between one and two and a half million of those die.

The statistics make a ghastly roll-call: more than 90 percent of fatal cases are children under five. Most of these are in Africa, where roughly 2,000 children die from the disease every day. No wonder that ten years ago the World Health Organisation declared the mosquito "public health enemy number one".

If there is one man who provides hope in the long fight against malaria, which is spreading out of the tropics through a combination of increased travel and trade and, possibly, global warming, it is Pedro Alonso. The director of the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research is a modest man. He insists that he has "just been one of many". …