As public-health officials continue to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers are trying to predict how climate change will impact the disease, which infected an estimated 219 million people in 2010. But projections have been hampered by wide variation in rainfall predictions for the region and lack of a malaria-transmission model that adequately describes the effects of local rainfall on mosquitos. A new study by Professor Elfatih Eltahir and graduate student Teresa Yamana solves this problem by combining a model of malaria transmission with global forecasts for temperature and rainfall. They found that although the capacity for malaria transmission will change in some areas of West Africa, overall infection rates are not likely to increase. Climate change by itself is not likely to make the situation worse. Read a news release.