Author: ulick

The underlying theory of malaria transmission and the transmission of other diseases by mosquito vectors is that germs enter the female mosquito as part of a blood meal and then develop further in the mosquito before moving to the salivary glands of the animal. When the mosquito bites again, it injects a little saliva that […]

One of the issues with the belief that malaria is spread by mosquitos is the willingness of many to believe that other diseases are spread by mosquitos. Over the recent labor day weekend in USA there was a scare about West Nile Virus covered sensationally in main stream media. The news articles are the usual […]

Malaria World this week has a review article by Irish et al published in Malaria Journal, ‘A review of selective indoor residual spraying for malaria control’. Indoor residual spraying (IRS) is described by the authors as one of the most effective malaria control tools. However, its application has become limited to specific contexts due to […]

In my book ‘Malaria is spread by mosquitos?’  I made the point that even within the vast quantity of peer reviewed research focusing on supporting the conventional mosquito-plasmodium narrative there are hints to what might really be causing the illness. And one reference this week in Malaria World is an example – ‘Close Proximity to […]

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 […]