Malaria kills twice as many people every year as formerly believed, taking 1.2 million lives and causing the deaths not only of babies but also older children and adults. The findings from the research, which has reanalysed 30 years of data on the disease using new techniques, will force a rethink of the huge global effort that has been under way to eliminate malaria, the guardian newspaper reported on Friday. That ambition now looks highly unlikely by the UN target date of 2015.