By BBC News Helen Briggs
 Signs
of malaria have been found in the skeleton of a child buried in
a Roman cemetery.
British researchers
say it is the earliest genetic evidence that the disease plagued
the classical civilisations of Rome and Greece.
The child
was buried at a site north of Rome more than 1,500 years ago.
Analysis of
DNA extracted from the infant's bones reveals signs of infection
with the parasite that causes human malaria.
The DNA evidence
provides support for the theory that a lethal outbreak of malaria
in the fifth century AD contributed to the downfall of the Roman
Empire.
"We can
be fairly sure that the child died of malaria," said Dr Robert
Sallares of the University of Manchester Institute of Science
and Technology (Umist), UK, who led the research.
"Ancient
DNA research is a new way of investigating the history of disease,"
he told BBC News Online.
"If we
can do the same sort of work on material from older sites, we
can determine when malaria entered Europe."
Argument
Terry Brown,
head of the department of Biomolecular Sciences, where the study
was carried out, said archaeological and ancient historians have
argued for some time about whether malaria was a significant factor
in the classical civilisations of Rome and Greece.
"We know
that communities in Greece and Rome suddenly died out. There's
argument over whether some of these communities were wiped out
by malaria," he told BBC News Online.
 One
million children a year die from malaria
Genetic analysis
has documented cases of malaria in medieval times, said Professor
Brown. But the study, due to be published in the journal Ancient
Biomolecules, is believed to be the first DNA evidence for malaria
as far back in history as late Roman times.
Roman fever
The name malaria
is derived from the Italian, (mal-aria) or "bad air".
It was also known as Roman fever.
It is a very
old disease - indeed, prehistoric man is thought to have suffered
from malaria.
Each year,
300-500 million people become ill with malaria and several million
die, mainly in Africa, India, South East Asia and South America.
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