Giving Compass' Take:

• Sonia Shah explains how infrastructure improvements can eliminate malaria around the world the way they have in the United States. 

• How can this solution work in a larger development context? 

• Learn about the role of business development in global health work. 

Malaria. It's scientifically complicated, it's economically challenging to deal with, and it's one for which the people who stand to benefit the most care about it the least.

And that adds up to the biggest problem of all, which, of course, is the political problem. How do you get a political leader to do anything about a problem like this? And the answer is, historically, you don't.

That's not to say that malaria is unconquerable, because I think it is,but what if we attacked this disease according to the priorities of the people who lived with it?

Take the example of England and the United States. We had malaria in those countries for hundreds of years, and we got rid of it completely, not because we attacked malaria. We didn't. We attacked bad roads and bad houses and bad drainage and lack of electricity and rural poverty. We attacked the malarious way of life, and by doing that, we slowly built malaria out.

Now attacking the malarious way of life, this is something -- these are things people care about today. And attacking the malarious way of life, it's not fast, it's not cheap, it's not easy, but I think it's the only lasting way forward.

Read the full article about malaria by Sonia Shah at TED.