Author: ulick

A paper in Malaria World this week attracted my attention for additional reasons. The research is organised by University of Notre Dame, where I earned my PhD. It was carried out in Kenya which I will visit next week. I am looking forward to leaving winter behind for a few weeks! The study, by Ochomo […]

Another ‘bug hunter’ paper published in Parasites and Vectors piqued my interest in Malaria World this week. Abas et al captured 20,449 mosquitos between June and December 2023 for ‘Risk of Aedes-borne diseases in and around the Tanzanian seaport of Tanga despite community members being more concerned about malaria’. Most of these (94.9%) were Culex […]

I am not entirely sure what to make a paper listed in this week’s Malaria World. Nor, indeed, are the authors. The title describes the content – ‘Small dams drive Anopheles abundance during the dry season in a high malaria burden area of Malawi’ by Zembere et al published in Medical and Veterinary Entomology. Its […]

Two of the leading articles in Malaria World this week are promoting the roll out of malaria vaccines. One, Life-saving malaria vaccines reach children in 17 endemic countries in 2024, is from the WHO and the other, Malaria Vaccines: Turning a Scientific Triumph into Millions of Lives Saved, is from the Center for Global Development, […]

A very interesting article was listed in news-medical.net this week. The open access article called ‘Animal-sourced foods improve child nutrition in Africa’ by Khonje and Qaim used representative data from five African countries—Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda—to show that the consumption of animal-sourced foods (ASF) contributes to improving child nutritional outcomes and that these […]

Two articles in Malaria World pertaining to the two countries with the largest numbers of deaths attributed to malaria caught my attention. The first is the lead article, a BBC report about vaccine rollout in Nigeria the most afflicted country with 26.8% of deaths. The article describes the roll-out of the new vaccine called R21/Matrix-M […]

A very interesting article in Malaria Journal by Ashton et al, Efficacy of attractive targeted sugar bait stations (ATBS) against malaria in Western Province Zambia: epidemiological findings from a two-arm cluster randomized phase III trial, describes a large real world trial of the efficacy of sugar baits affixed to the walls of buildings laced with […]

This week I introduce similarities and differences of the approach to AIDS and Malaria in Africa. African friends express more concern about AIDS and HIV. In many cases that have known victims and it seems a more real threat. I have not examined HIV/AIDS in any great detail as many others more qualified on the […]

Malaria World this week featured the news –  New drug could help fight against treatment-resistant malaria. The article referenced by Scottish  researchers Brettell et al was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and is entitled Targeting Pf CLK3 with Covalent Inhibitors: A Novel Strategy for Malaria Treatment. In summary, the novel compounds developed inhibit […]

For the second time in recent weeks, I am glad to report that some malaria researchers are questioning the use of insecticides to combat malaria. A proof copy of a review paper by Oberlin et al entitled ‘Effect of Indoor Residual Spraying on Malaria in Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes: A Systematic Review’ was included in […]