Plasmodium falciparum
Plasmodium falciparum is a unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of "Plasmodium" that cause malaria in humans. It is transmitted through the bite of a female "Anopheles" mosquito. It is responsible for roughly 50% of all malaria cases. It causes the disease's most dangerous form called falciparum malaria. It is therefore regarded as the deadliest parasite in humans, causing 435,000 deaths in 2017. It is also associated with the development of blood cancer (Burkitt's lymphoma) and is classified as Group 2A carcinogen.
Walter Myers (physician)
On 24 August Durham and Myers arrived in Pari (modern day Belem) in the northern state of Pará, Brazil, where they established a laboratory in Domingos Freire Hospital to study the transmission of the disease and were among the first to establish its transmission by mosquitoes. Durham and Myers were aware of the risks that they were taking; however, on 16 January 1901, after conducting the fourteenth autopsy on victims of yellow fever both men found they were themselves infected. They were transferred to the Domingos Freire Isolation Hospital in Pari where Durham recovered but Myers died four days later, aged 28. In his subsequent report Durham deduced that they had both been infected through mosquito bites.