Our fight against malaria is strange, cyclical and shows few signs of slowing

By far the deadliest parasitic disease in human history, malaria has killed millions upon millions of people over the past several thousand years. Effective anti-malarial treatments have existed since the 17th century, but the disease still kills more than a million people a year, many of them children. Despite enormous efforts to neutralise and eradicate the disease, the malaria parasite has proved hugely resilient, capable of developing a resistance to everything humankind has ever thrown at it. Produced by NPR, Herbs and Empires traces the strange history of one of our most formidable foes.