Malaria risk assessment and preventive recommendations: a new approach for the Canadian military

Western militaries deploying to international locations are often confronted with the threat of malaria. For the Canadian military, the consequent response has been prescriptive-any risk of malaria warrants use of personal protective measures and chemoprophylaxis. In reality, however, malaria risk is highly variable and a one-size-fits-all strategy to mitigation may not be appropriate. In line with this, the Canadian military has revised its approach to malaria risk assessment and preventive response. More effort is now spent on predictive modeling and, where risk is deemed to be low, chemoprophylaxis may not be recommended. We describe here an application of the revised methodology to the recent Canadian military deployment to Kandahar province, Afghanistan.