Morning Briefing

"In recent weeks, the emergence on the Thai-Myanmar border of malaria strains resistant to artemisinin, a plant-derived drug, have led to pessimistic headlines and reminders of the setback caused by resistance to the drug chloroquine, which began in the 1950s," columnist and author Matt Ridley writes in the Wall Street Journal's "Mind & Matter," noting, "April 25 is World Malaria Day, designed to draw attention to the planet's biggest infectious killer." He continues, "For this reason, prevention generally works better than cure in eradicating infectious diseases: Vaccination beat smallpox, clean water beats cholera, less crowded living beats tuberculosis and protection from mosquitoes beats malaria."