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    New U.S. Malaria Czar: Why We Should Care About The Disease, Even In A Pandemic

    Did you even know the U.S. has a malaria czar? Who himself had malaria as a kid? We interview Dr. Raj Panjabi, newly appointed by President Joe Biden.
    by Marc Silver Mar 04, 2021 4 minutes
    Dr. Raj Panjabi, the newly named head of the President's Malaria Initiative, treating patients during a visit to Liberia, where he was born and lived until 1990. He'll lead the effort to prevent and treat malaria around the world. Each year, some 400,000 people die of a disease that, he notes, is "preventable and treatable."

    Here's a few things you probably didn't know about malaria and the U.S.

    At least eight U.S. presidents had it, including George Washington (infected in Virginia), Abraham Lincoln (infected in Illinois) and John F. Kennedy (infected in the Solomon Islands during World War II).

    The current U.S. caseload is zero (with the exception of Americans who contract the disease abroad).

    The U.S. actually has a malaria czar: the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator for the President's Malaria Initiative, overseeing an annual budget of $770 million. The goal of the initiative is to wipe out this potentially fatal disease, spread by mosquitoes, which infects some 220 million people a year.

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