In this week's PLoS Medicine, Teun Bousema of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK and colleagues argue that targeting malaria "hotspots," small groups of households at a substantially increased risk of malaria transmission, is a highly efficient way to reduce malaria transmission at all levels of transmission intensity.

The authors state: "Malaria hotspots appear to maintain malaria transmission in low transmission seasons and are the driving force for transmission in the high transmission season. Targeting the hotspots would mean the most infected and most diseased households would be prioritized with the added benefits of reducing transmission to the whole community."