Professor Nicholas John White, Professor of Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford and Mahidol University, Physician, John Radcliffe Hospital gives the Archie Cochrane 2015 lecture. Malaria is the most important parasitic infection of humans. No other infectious disease has had left such an imprint on the human genome. In tropical regions approximately 2000 people, mainly children in Africa, die each day from malaria. Medicines for malaria have been used for thousands of years and indeed due to active measures such as marsh draining and the development of residual insecticides, malaria was reduced substantially or eliminated in many areas, but in others (much of sub-Saharan Africa) there was little impact. However the future is uncertain. Resistance to the main insecticides is rising jeopardising the efficacy of treated bed nets and resistance to the main drugs has emerged in South East Asia and is spreading.