Author: ulick

GAVI – Poisoning Children in the Developing World?

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 […]

Bedbugs and Cockroaches

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 […]

Artemisinin. Malaria cure or COVID-19 Vaccine detoxifier?

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 […]

Asymptomatic Malaria

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 […]

Blood Donations and Malaria

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

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, […]

The Future is African

I visited Africa for the first time this winter. It was great to leave dreary wet Northern Europe to enjoy the sun vertically overhead near the Tropic of Capricorn in December. What was also pleasant was the optimism of the people and the feeling that Africa is developing quickly and the living standards of the […]