Avian malaria is a disease caused by a protozoan parasite infecting birds in many parts of the world.
Unlike human malaria, to which it is closely related, it’s not a tropical disease, and can in fact be found in many of our common British birds.
Studies of blue tits near Oxford show that about 40% of birds are infected, and many birds live without serious effects of the infection.
However, like many diseases, malaria can be most dangerous in a host species that has not been exposed to the disease before, and therefore won’t have evolved resistance to the disease.
Because malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes (and there are none in the Antarctic), we can be pretty sure that penguins won’t have been exposed before, or evolved resistance.
Avian malaria (and a mosquito to transmit it) was introduced accidentally to Hawaii about a century ago, and caused big population declines in many of the birds that were native to those islands, since they also had no resistance to malaria.
While preventing mosquitoes biting is the best way to control malaria, the good news is that the drugs that can be used to control human malaria also seem to work against avian malaria infections.
