malaria

Year after year in December we're seeing the fruits of our collective efforts to combat malaria reflected in the 'World Malaria Report' series produced by the World Health Organisation. And in those reports, year after year, we saw progression in terms of falling numbers of deaths. But today we're confronted with a harsh reality - the figures that were presented to us were off. Way off.

The past few weeks have been good for the press when it gets to malaria. First they discovered what many of us knew all along: that resistance to pyrethroids is on the rise and may jeopardise the usefulness of LLINs. Then they marvelled at the 'outbreak' in Greece, where six were diagnosed with P. vivax malaria without ever having left the country. And this week's high is the story that mosquito numbers in Africa are dropping for some mysterious reason. The more money that goes into malaria research, the more scientists are coming out with remarkable findings, and the press gulps it up and make the stories ever more gripping. Which I understand...

The editors of the open access general medical journal PLoS Medicine are delighted to announce the publication of a collection of 12 reviews, comprising three reflective pieces and nine research and development agendas, as part of a sponsored Supplement. The Collection comprises the output of countless hours of discussion and debate by those involved in the malERA initiative and we hope that by publishing this Collection better transparency in defining research priorities will be achieved for malariologists around the world. The articles also provide fascinating insights into what the selected malaria experts who took part agree are the priority research themes that must be tackled in order to eradicate malaria.   

Chris Blattman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science & Economics at Yale University. He uses field work and statistics to study poverty, political participation, the causes and consequences of violence, and policy in developing countries. Read his website here. I invited Chris to post his blog on malaria on the MW platform, shown below.

After a long stint, I finally managed to go home for a visit last weekend. Its been raining in Nairobi over the last few days so there are puddles of water here and there and my home is no exception. You already know am going to talk about mosquitoes and malaria well yes I am.

As part of the TH!NK3 blogging competition 'Developing World', I wrote an article last week titled 'The man who saved Brazil'. It was the 11th article I wrote for this endeavour, and I see it as my most important one till now. It is the one I sincerely hope you will read. And let me know how you feel about it.

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research scientist to work on a project funded by the FCT (National Scientific Foundation), Portugal to investigate the role of immune stimulatory molecules on mosquito Anopheles gambiae response against the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei (PTDC/SAU-MII/102596/2008). 

This may seem a ridiculous question. With 280 million people diseased every year, and 850.000 deaths, how can one argue that malaria is not important?