Researchers trace origins of malaria parasite from African slave trade to South America

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study done using DNA analysis and partly undertaken by the University of California, Irvine, has found evidence to support the premise that malaria was brought to South America via the African slave trade in the sixteenth century, rather than much earlier as some have suggested. The results of the study, led by evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, are to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the malaria parasite apparently had two sites of introduction, one in the northern part of South America and another in the south.

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