Global health security, collaborating to stop epidemics
Global health security is defined as stopping the spread of infectious diseases and drug resistance across borders. Its a concept being put into action by the Global Health Security Agenda, a commitment by over 50 member countries, NGOs and international donors to assess and improve health systems to stop outbreaks, as happened with Ebola in West Africa, turning into epidemics. We review progress on malaria and on neglected tropical diseases as detailed in the 2017 annual report of UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, entitled "Global Britain in the Fight against Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases".
Malaria control, disasters and conflict
WHO European Region announced last week that Europe is now malaria free. This is great news to coincide with World Malaria Day this year. The challenge is to make sure Europe remains free of malaria into the future. Europe has been declared malaria free before, back in 1975. What happened to allow it to return?
World Malaria Day 2015: play a game and save a life
For world malaria day april 25th 2015, expand rapid diagnosis of malaria by playing the MalariaSpot online game, an innovative and successful exercise in crowdsourcing. All it takes is just one minute of your time!
Malaria can climb mountains when temperatures rise
A study in Science by Siraj and colleagues this week showed malaria occurs at higher altitudes in warmer years. Their modelling predicts that a one degree Celsius temperature rise in the Ethiopian highlands could lead to 2.8 million more cases in children each year in current malaria areas and over 400,000 cases in new areas.…
Can the growth of cities help to eliminate malaria?
The past century has seen unprecedented growth in cities around the world. Whilst the rise of megacities is a source of concern to some (see Feral cities, BBC Radio 4), according to researchers from the UK and USA, urbanization has been followed by a significant contraction in the extent of malaria throughout endemic countries.
April 25th World Malaria Day: affordable medicines & artemisinin-based control
April 25th is World Malaria Day & there’s mixed news concerning the GlaxoSmithKline RTS,S vaccine: 65% of children vaccinated were protected in the 1st year, but protection declined to zero over the next 3 years so booster shots will be essential. Vaccine efficacy also declined faster in children who were more exposed to malaria than in those who had below-average exposure. Effectiveness is at the heart of the problem of malaria control. Oxfam’s report “Salt, Sugar And Malaria Pills” highlighted their concerns on the effectiveness of Global Fund's Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (focussed on increasing access to artemisinin-combination drugs).