Until well after the end of World War II, malaria was endemic in much of southern Europe. The Balkans, Italy, Greece and Portugal were particularly affected though seasonal epidemics or outbreaks occurred as far north as Scandinavia, e.g. Finland in 1944. The area of malaria distribution in Europe was greatest at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. At that time, the northernmost limit of malaria in Europe ran from central England to southern Norway, central Sweden, central Finland and Northern European Russia along the 64° N parallel. The marshlands of coastal southern and eastern England had unusually high levels of mortality from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century attributed to an endemic disease known as ‘marsh fever’ or ‘ague’. The ‘marsh fever’ was, in fact, malaria. Malaria in these coastal marshlands had a striking impact on local patterns of disease and death (Dobson, 1994). The first noticeable decline of malaria was seen in Europe during the nineteenth century due to new agricultural practices and changed social conditions. The final disappearance of the disease in Europe and North America was due more to the changed ecological conditions than to the use of DDT (de Zulueta, 1994).

Soon after the end of World War II intensive control measures were initiated in the malaria endemic areas of southern Europe and, by 1970, malaria transmission had been virtually eradicated from the continent, an achievement which contributed to the economic development of the some of the worst affected areas in south-east Europe.