Scientists use mining data to build malaria alert system in the Amazon

A study that won second place in the MapBiomas Award found that a 1% increase in illegal mining in Brazil's Yanomami Indigenous Territory was linked to a 24% jump in monthly malaria cases, with cases surging past 25,000 annually during the Bolsonaro administration's tenure. Researchers led by Harvard's Márcia Castro traced the spread partly to miners themselves acting as disease carriers as they trekked supply routes, and partly to forest fragmentation creating ideal mosquito breeding grounds.

After the Lula administration declared a public health emergency in 2023 and deployed a task force to expel miners, mined area shrank from roughly 1,800 hectares in 2022 to 29 hectares in 2024. The Health Ministry reports 7,600 malaria cases in the territory from January-July 2026, down 55% from the same period the prior year, and says reinfections fell 61.9% after a new single-dose drug, tafenoquine, reached about 1,150 Yanomami.

Castro and colleagues are now building a weekly alert system using mining, deforestation and climate data to flag outbreaks before they erupt, expected by early next year. Miners remain in the territory, however, having pushed deeper into the forest toward the Venezuelan border, and an Indigenous leader worries a potential Flávio Bolsonaro administration could reverse the gains.

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