The map, produced by Oxford University in collaboration with the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, shows about 35 percent of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria but many people are at a lower risk than previously thought.

The Malaria Atlas Project found 2.37 billion people are at risk of contracting malaria from Plasmodium faciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite for humans. It is transmitted through the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. Another 1 billion people live under a much lower risk of infection than was assumed under previous maps.

That lower-than-expected risk area includes Central and South America, Asia and parts of Africa -- the continent where malaria kills the vast majority of its victims and where risk has historically been classified as universally high.

The research that was funded by the Wellcome Trust and included scientists at the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogens Institute appears in the online edition of the journal PLoS Medicine.