World Malaria Day: Famous People Who Died Because Of Malaria And How I Found Them Out

It was April last year and I was preparing for my trip to India. My mum was frantically asking me to change my mind and stay safe in England, rather then go to that land of exotic diseases. Around the same time I started taking Proguanil, a medication used to prevent malaria, just as my physician told me. Two weeks before the departure, all my stay in India and then half of that period after I come back, this is how much I had to softly kill my liver. To that, add all the side effects I experienced. Dizziness? Checked. Abdominal pain? Checked. Weakness? Loss of appetite? Double checked. Vomiting? Thank God, no. At one point, the little devil on my left shoulder whispered me a brilliant idea. What if I stop taking them? I bet there are many people out there who travelled to that region without any fancy anti-malaria pills. As the 21^st century person I am, I do nothing without searching it on Google beforehand. Here is a compressed list of famous people who contacted or died of malaria.

Starting with the 13^th century, the Mongol overlord Genghis Khan formed the largest land empire known, winning numerous battles. In the spring of 1227 though, he contacted malaria and after several months the disease won, Genghis Khan died when he was about sixty years old. Alexander the Great was another brilliant fighter who had the strength to win the battle with the Persian army, but not the one with malaria. He died at the age of 32 because of the disease. Although some believe it may have been typhoid fever.

Christopher Columbus had to shorten his fourth trip in 1503 when he was trying to find a sea route to Asia because of an acute case of malaria.

U.S. Army medical researchers take part in World Malaria Day 2010, Kisumu, Kenya April 25, 2010. Image credit: US Army Africa

Talking about the United States, it was not only one American president who acquired malaria. Beginning with the 1^st President George Washington, who lived between 1789 and 1797 and had contacted the disease in Virginia when he was 17, having several periodic attacks throughout his life, and ending with Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy, all of them had to deal with malaria. Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th President, had periodic bouts, Theodore Roosevelt was infected after a visit to Brazil in 1914, and John F. Kennedy contacted malaria during the World War II.  During his time in office, he spent a great deal of money on tackling the disease in different countries across the world.

Going forth in time, Mahatma Gandhi suffered from a severe case of malaria in 1944, which got him an early medical release from the last of his imprisonments because of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Ernest Hemingway also caught malaria, while covering the Greco-Turkish war as a foreign correspondent.

In 1993, Mother Teresa was hospitalized because she contacted malaria while on a trip to Delhi.

As my first stop was Delhi, 10 years after the Nobel Peace Prize winning nun contacted malaria there, and because I am type O blood, which makes me seem delicious to all  mosquitoes worldwide, I decided not to stop the medication. India was beautiful, the mosquitoes quite friendly and all in all, it was a lifetime experience.