New Delhi, Feb. 27: Nine out of 10 persons in India are at risk of picking up malaria caused by the potentially deadly Plasmodium falciparum parasite, the first world malaria map in 40 years has shown.

Nearly 415 million Indians face high or moderate risk of picking up P. falciparum , and an additional 535 million people are at low risk, according to the map developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.

Their two-year effort has indicated that worldwide about 2.37 billion people live in areas where they are at risk of malaria, but one billion live in areas where the risk is extremely low.

The researchers, who presented their findings in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine on Tuesday, defined areas with annual parasite incidence of more than 0.1 per 1,000 population as at high and moderate risk of malaria transmission.

The map highlights some areas that are at high risk.

The map “gives us hope that eliminating the disease from certain regions may be achievable using tools as simple and cost effective as insecticide treated bed-nets”, said Simon Hay, a research team member at the University of Oxford.

The malaria map project supported by the Wellcome Trust, a health funding agency, is expected to help health officials identify areas in need of more intensive measures to prevent the spread of malaria.

“Comparing the geographical distribution of malaria risk against spending in that region, we’ll be able to see how effectively funding is being allocated and adjust as necessary,” said Robert Snow, the head of the Malaria Atlas Project team.

India recorded 1.67 million malaria cases during 2006, including 700,000 caused by P. falciparum, the parasite that can cause lethal complications of the brain. Assam, Orissa and Bengal accounted for the largest number of deaths, according to the national malaria tracking programme.

Drug resistance has hampered India’s malaria control efforts in the past. But a parasitology expert in Lucknow said the emergence of new drugs, particularly related to a compound called artimisinin, has helped reduce the number of deaths from malaria.

In 2006, the government registered 1,487 malaria deaths. “But the drugs need to be available for use by infected people at the right time,” the expert told The Telegraph.

Orissa, Jharkhand, Bengal, Assam, Chhattisgarh and parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are high-risk areas for malaria in India.

The malaria mapping team found that nearly all regions where more than half the children carried the P. falciparum parasite were in Africa.

Outside Africa, the prevalence of this parasite is less than 5 per cent.

A map on the risk of Plasmodium vivax — the more common but less deadly malaria parasite — is yet to be made because its biology is more complex.