Author: ulick

The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute asks if genetic approaches could be a sharper tool in the ‘malaria toolkit’ to go with old standbys like bed nets and indoor residual spraying. Its quotes Dr Damaris Matoka-Muhia of the Kenya Medical Research Institute who considers gene drives a potentially sustainable, long-term, and cost-effective solution for malaria – […]

In Malaria World this week there is a press release from GAVI about Mozambique introducing malaria vaccines into routine immunisation. GAVI describes the vaccine as lifesaving and  a critical step forward to revitalize the fight against malaria and improve children’s survival. The vaccine introduced in the childhood vaccination schedule in Mosambique is the same R21 […]

This week malaria world featured an interesting article about the ‘collateral damage’ caused by insecticides used against mosquitos and how the effect on nuisance insects is a major reason people continued to use insecticide treated nets. The authors are concerned that the development of resistance by bedbugs and cockroaches to the insecticides usually used on […]

Last week in Malaria World there were two articles about the resistance of malaria to artemisin derived treatments. Artemisinin-resistant malaria in Africa demands urgent action by Dhorda et al and Immediate policy changes urgently needed as drug-resistant malaria spreads in East Africa from the Centre of Tropical Medicine and Global Health. The core of the […]

An article in Malaria World by Alemayehu et al., Asymptomatic malaria in pregnancy and associated risk factors in Majang Zone, Gambella Region, Southwest Ethiopia: a hard-to-reach malaria hotspot, examines the association of various factors with the occurrence of asymptomatic malaria in pregnant women. I am suspicious of the description of illnesses as asymptomatic especially since […]

In Malaria World last week there was an article researching the uptake of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) in six sub-Saharan countries (Xu et al, 2024). This is just one example of many research papers that examine uptake of malaria preventative treatment and try to propose how to increase it. This would seem to […]

Malaria World this week has an interesting research article published in BMC by Mbishi et al that finds that poverty is a significant factor in the prevalence of malaria. The findings of the pooled data research article found that maternal education, household wealth and rural/urban place of residence had significant effects on the occurrence of […]

This week there was an article in Malaria World Newsletter of interest to those of us who do not live in countries in which malaria is supposedly endemic. The subject is blood donations. I am an active donor. I give blood because it supposedly reduces blood pressure. It is easy to see how this would […]

Response to Declaration for accelerated malaria mortality reduction in Africa by Ministers of Health of High Burden High Impact (HBHI) countries in Africa. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. Dear Minister, I am responding to your call to build collaborative partnerships for resource mobilization, […]

Every week I check the news in the malaria world to see if there is anything of interest. This week there was a press release from the WHO announcing the Shipment of newest malaria vaccine, R21, to Central African Republic  and claiming it marks latest milestone for child survival. Needless to say I was intrigued […]