I never considered people who tried to cure malaria would do it for any other reasons that the deaths it causes. The productivity loss could be another worthy cause.
I still believe people who are after a cure mainly do it to prevent the deaths it causes. Wikipedia reports that Malaria is responsible for "2.23% of deaths worldwide" which is not negligible.
That in turn causes people to be less productive, which in turn means they have less surplus available for things like education.
This causes areas with malaria to forever be stuck in a primitive state of development. Cure malaria and things may change a lot.