Malaria scorecard: battles have been won and advances made, but the war isn’t over: Sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear the brunt of malaria cases in the world. In this region 11 countries account for two-thirds of the global burden. World Malaria Day is marked on 25 April. What progress has been made against the disease, …
Beating malaria: what can be done with shrinking funds and rising threats: Healthcare in Africa faces a perfect storm: high rates of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV, a rise in non-communicable diseases, and dwindling foreign aid. In 2021, nearly half of the sub-Saharan African countries relied on external financing for more than a third …
Mosquitoes use gut bacteria to fight the malaria they transmit – scientists are exploring how to use this to end the disease: _Anopheles gambiae_ complex mosquito species can transmit malaria. CDC/James Gathany via Wikimedia Commons The months of September to May are an unfortunate season in South Africa: malaria season. The mosquito-borne disease is found …
Mapping malaria in Africa: climate change study predicts where mosquitoes will breed in future: Water bodies such as the Nile River, pictured here running through Juba in South Sudan, are included in the new model. Frontpage The relationship between climate and malaria transmission is complex and has been the subject of intense study for some …
Malaria: two groundbreaking vaccines have been developed, but access and rollout are still big stumbling blocks: The approval of two malaria vaccines – the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine in 2021 and the R21/Matrix-MTM vaccine in 2023 – will help control, and eventually help eradicate, a disease that causes more than 600,000 deaths annually. Nearly 2 million children …
Antibiotic resistance causes more deaths than malaria and HIV/Aids combined. What Africa is doing to fight this silent epidemic: Each year antimicrobial resistance – the ability of microbes to survive agents designed to kill them – claims more lives than malaria and HIV/Aids combined. Africa bears the brunt of this development, which thrives on inequality …
New malaria vaccine: no silver bullet but an important step towards eradication: In what was very big news for global health, this week the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended a new vaccine for the prevention of malaria in children, called R21/Matrix-M. Malaria, caused by infection with Plasmodium parasites and transmitted via mosquitoes, still causes many …
The long road to a new malaria vaccine, told by the scientists behind the breakthrough – podcast: Darkdiamond67 via Shutterstock The world has waited decades for a malaria vaccine, and now two have come along in quick succession. On October 2, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that a new malaria vaccine, R21, developed by …
‘We could eradicate malaria by 2040’ says expert after revolutionary vaccine is approved by WHO: The World Health Organization has approved a new vaccine that scientists argue will be a game-changer in the fight against malaria, which kills half a million people in Africa every year. Trials have shown that the R21/Matrix vaccine, developed by …
How genetically modifying mosquitoes could strengthen the world’s war on malaria: Genetic modification could make malaria-carrying mosquitoes harmless. LeliaSpb/Getty Images It’s been 126 years since British medical doctor Sir Ronald Ross discovered that mosquitoes in the Anopheles family are primarily responsible for transmitting malaria parasites between vertebrate hosts. Since his discovery, mosquitoes have been found …
Nigeria has Africa’s highest malaria death rate – progress is being made, but it’s not enough: Lagos residents use art to draw attention to the gaps in the prevention and treatment of malaria. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images Malaria is a major public health problem and can be life-threatening. The disease, mostly found in …
A new invasive mosquito has been found in Kenya – what this means for malaria control: Malaria transmission in Kenya has been largely limited to the coast and western parts of the country. Shutterstock The Kenya Medical Research Institute recently detected an invasive mosquito species in Laisamis and Saku subcounties of Marsabit county in Kenya’s …
Climate change affects mosquito behaviour. This may make it harder to end malaria in South Africa: Global climate is changing rapidly. This has a range of public health implications. CDC/ James Gathany Changes in climatic factors – such as higher temperatures and increased rainfall – affect the developmental, behavioural and distribution patterns of insects like …
Malaria in Africa: why most countries haven’t beaten it yet: 80% of malaria deaths are in children younger than five. Olympia de Maismont/AFP via Getty Images Malaria remains one of the most devastating parasitic diseases affecting humans. In 2020 there were around 241 million cases and 672,000 malaria-related deaths. This is a sharp increase from …
Vaccines could be a game-changer in the fight against malaria in Africa: The first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, was approved by the WHO in 2021. Brian Ongoro/AFP via Getty Images The development of an effective vaccine for malaria has proved to be far more challenging than developing a vaccine to protect people from COVID-19. Several different …
Malaria vaccine: the road has been long and tortuous, but we’re getting there: A vaccine candidate, called R21, has been shown to be up to 80% effective at preventing malaria in young children, according to the latest trial results. This follows from a study published in 2021 from the same team at Oxford University which …
Mosquitoes: there’s malaria, plus 5 other diseases they pass on to humans: Tacio Philip Sansonovski/Shutterstock Most people instantly associate mosquitoes with malaria. But these tiny flying insects can transmit a number of other diseases too. Viruses transmitted by insects like mosquitoes are called arthropod-borne or arboviruses. Like malaria, these viruses are transmitted to vertebrate hosts …
Artificial light may become a new weapon in the fight to control malaria: Artificial light may trick malaria-transmitting mosquitoes into changing their feeding habits, protecting people against bites. Professor Lizette Koekemoer/University of the Witwatersrand The world has not yet won the war against malaria. While the total number of cases has declined from about 81.1 …