MalariaWorld this week carried details an announcement by WHO (World Health Organization) on April 24 last week, the eve of World Malaria Day. The highlight of the article was the new prequalification of an artemether-lumefantrine treatment, that is the first antimalarial formulation designed specifically for the youngest malaria patients (<6 months).
The treatment, produced by Novartis and sold as Coartem Baby or Riamet Baby was approved by Swissmedic last year and reviewed in this column on July 11, 2025 ‘New Wonderdrug for Babies Tested without Control’. Its performance in terms of efficacy and side-effects was hardly a game changer.
WHO also, on April 14, 2026, prequalified three new rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) designed to address emerging diagnostic challenges for malaria. These tests detect even more ‘cases’ of malaria than current tests many of which the WHO consider that there is a problem with false negatives, a failure to detect plasmodia parasite protein. This is curious since current RTDs already detect more malaria ‘cases’ than the gold standard microscopy method. Of course, the WHO would never consider false positives, which seem like the more likely outcome of the more sensitive tests to be an issue.
They also promote vaccines and bed nets in the announcement, whose ineffectiveness has been covered here over the last few weeks.
Reformulated Artemisinin combination treatments, more sensitive RTDs, vaccines and bed nets do not suggest serious innovation from WHO. WHO never considers the poverty factors highlighted in this column, and they have also ignored some of the outlandish recent approaches of malaria researchers like gene drive mosquitos and larvae eating fish.