Urban malaria may be spreading via the wind—here’s why that's important

[Extract] Malaria remains the most important vector-borne disease in Africa, with over 590,000 deaths annually. Although until now, malaria in Africa has been primarily a rural problem, the recent establishment and expansion of the invasive urban Asian vector Anopheles stephensi will likely drastically change Africa’s disease risk landscape. Urban malaria will become a bigger threat. Unlike all other African malaria vectors, An. stephensi larvae thrive in container habitats (e.g., abandoned tires or cisterns) near human dwellings, similar to the urban yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. Thus, human populations in the continent’s rapidly expanding megacities, such as Kinshasa and Lagos, and metropolises, such as Khartoum and Abidjan, are now more vulnerable to malaria