We can add to this. Jessica Metcalf, an infectious diseases biologist at Princeton University, has proposed a Global Immunological Observatory, a global programme of immune-system sampling from the general public that would allow scientists to pick up signs of new pathogens as they emerge.

For malaria, we can add to the World Health Organization's efforts. The WHO is putting $8.7bn a year into its 10-year malaria strategy. If we added, say, $100bn, what could we do? The classic idea in epidemiology is to eliminate the common cold by giving everyone a wonder drug at once. Bingo, cold gone. With our windfall we could try to ensure that everyone in need, throughout the world, received the best available antimalarial drugs (at the moment, the artemisinin-based combination therapy). But, even with our money, we can't reach everyone in remote places and, without also controlling the mosquito population density, malaria will come back instantly. So we'd need to fight the insect as well as the disease. Malaria is caused by a parasitic microorganism, Plasmodium, carried by a mosquito. We've tried over the years to eradicate it, but, every time, the parasite or the insect – or both – have clung on, evolved resistance to our control methods and bounced back.

So we need to take out the mosquito reservoir, and to do that we need a method of beating evolution. Target Malaria, an international research consortium, is working on a solution. They want to use a method of genetic modification called gene drive, which causes female insects to become infertile, but in a way that has proven immune to the evolution of resistance.

Rolled out on a big enough scale in the wild, with a huge modification and breeding programme, we can eliminate local populations of malarial mosquitoes. If you are wondering about the ecological wisdom of eliminating an entire species from an area, it's a valid concern.