Little mozzie a big threat

A woman fetching water from a reservoir at Dire Dawa University that was found to be a major breeding spot for Anopheles stephensi larvae during a malaria outbreak in 2022, in Ethiopia. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

THE narrow wooden benches in the student health clinic at Dire Dawa University in Ethiopia’s second-largest city began to fill up in March last year: feverish students slumped against their friends, cradling aching heads in their hands.

Helen Asaminew, the presiding nurse, was baffled. The students had the hallmark symptoms of malaria. But people didn’t get malaria in cities, and the students hadn’t travelled anywhere. It was the dry season. There was no malaria for hundreds of miles.