Mostly caring about your immediate neighbourhood and local effects does not mean ignoring that other places and their history exists. For Malaria, there is not

Mostly caring about your immediate neighbourhood and local effects does not mean ignoring that other places and their history exists. For Malaria, there is not even a debate that it historically was a very widespread disease with high impact in economy and also in warfare. It is estimated that 60000 US soldiers died to Malaria alone in WW II.