The incidence of COVID-19 is dramatically lower in malarial countries than in non-malarial countries, according to one researcher.

This may well vindicate President Donald Trump’s decision to fast-track the use of the anti-malarial drug chloroquine phosphate for the treatment of coronavirus.

The correlation was spotted by Dr Roy Spencer, meteorologist and a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Here is what he posted on his Facebook page:

There are various possible explanations for this ‘stunning’ correlation. One is that malarial countries are not keeping effective records and that the incidence of COVID-19 is much higher than they admit; another is that they are located in the tropics – and coronavirus does not survive for so long in hot countries.

But the most encouraging possibility is that these are countries whose populations have been heavily exposed to the cheap, generic, old-fashioned anti-malarial drug chloroquine phosphate – and that this may have given them a degree of immunity.

As I reported earlier, several studies – including a small scale one conducted in France this month – suggest that chloroquine has proved effective in treating COVID-19. It has been previously used successfully in the treatment of SARS another coronavirus with similar characteristics to COVID-19.

Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That? reports:

Additional support for antimalarial drugs for COVID-19 treatment comes from this investigation linked below.

The map says it all: COVID-19 is where Malaria is not.