Engineers need to rethink how to design and operate dams after research found that they create an additional 1.1 million cases of malaria every year.
Dams provide vital water security as well as power to countries in Africa but they also create small standing pools of water – ideal breeding grounds for malaria-transmitting mosquitos.
An analysis carried out by the International Water Management Institute found that around dams with shallower slopes – those with less than one degree of slope – there were between 60 and 70 cases of malaria for every 1000 people.