Malaria News and Research

Latest Malaria News and Research

Scientists develop novel method to accurately predict dengue fever outbreaks

A team of scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has developed a novel method to accurately predict dengue fever outbreaks several weeks before they occur.

24 Mar 2013

Swaziland, South Africa announce initiative to improve diagnosis, treatment of TB/HIV co-infection

"Health ministers from Swaziland and South Africa have agreed to radically change the diagnosis and treatment of the co-epidemic of [tuberculosis (TB)]/HIV in their countries," VOA News reports.

22 Mar 2013

Effectiveness of candidate malaria vaccine decreases over time, study shows

"The effectiveness of an experimental malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline wanes over time, with the shot protecting only 16.8 percent of children over four years, according to trial data," Reuters reports.

22 Mar 2013

New hope for treating, preventing malaria

Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Medical Center have developed a drug that may represent one of the world's best hopes for treating and preventing malaria - a disease that kills more than one million people each year.

22 Mar 2013

GlobalPost, humanitarian agencies examine impact of childhood TB

Noting the WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Monday issued a joint statement calling for an additional $1.6 million a year to fight tuberculosis (TB) in low- and middle-income countries, GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog examines the global impact of childhood TB, writing, "While health officials did not single out the devastating impact of the disease on children ... WHO estimates that at least 500,000 children contract TB each year and that 70,000 die from the disease, largely in Asia and Africa."

21 Mar 2013

Blog reports on Consortium of Universities for Global Health annual conference

The Global Health Technologies Coalition's "Breakthroughs" blog reports on the Consortium of Universities for Global Health annual conference held last week, highlighting "a panel hosted by the GHTC, which focused on current fiscal and policy realities in the United States that will impact global health research and development in the coming year and beyond."

21 Mar 2013

New class of anti-malarial compounds discovered

A group of researchers from 16 institutions around the world has identified a new class of anti-malarial compounds that target multiple stages of the malaria parasite's life cycle.

21 Mar 2013

WHO, Global Fund call for additional $1.6M a year to fight TB in low-, middle-income countries

"Low and middle-income countries need an additional $1.6 billion a year to fight tuberculosis, threatening progress made against the world's second-deadliest infectious disease," the WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said in a joint statement released Monday, Bloomberg reports (Bennett, 3/18).

20 Mar 2013

Mozambique completes first HIV vaccine clinical trial

Last week, "researchers at Mozambique's Polana Cancio Centre for Research and Public Health completed a trial evaluating the safety of an HIV vaccine candidate," the country's "first HIV vaccine trial," and it "is set to embark on a second, a demonstration of the country's increased HIV research capacity," PlusNews reports.

20 Mar 2013

Blog reports on PPP aimed at improving health status of poorest Central Americans, Mexicans

"At the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) recent annual meeting in Panama, the two richest men in the world" -- Mexican businessman and philanthropist Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – "discussed their contributions to a little-known public-private partnership that aims to improve the health status of the poorest Central Americans and Mexicans -- Salud Mesoamerica 2015 or SM2015," Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), writes in the center's "Global Health Policy" blog.

20 Mar 2013

Blog examines new data on global burden of disease

"The Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation recently published the most recent global estimates of disease burden that update the leading causes of death and disability across the world," Todd Summers, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies Global Health Policy Center, writes in the center's "Smart Global Health" blog.

19 Mar 2013

Bill Gates says capitalism funnels more resources into minor ailments than infectious diseases

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "has declared capitalism 'flawed' because it channels more resources to curing minor ailments such as male baldness than to addressing the diseases that destroy millions of lives every year," The Independent reports.

19 Mar 2013

Maintaining funding for global health programs will ensure success

"The ongoing budget negotiations in Washington will require many hard choices to be made in the coming weeks," and "[w]ith respect to global health programs, these decisions may mean, literally, the difference between life and death," Peter Chernin -- chair and CEO of the Chernin Group, chair of Malaria No More, and a board member of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – writes in an AlertNet opinion piece.

16 Mar 2013

South Sudan hospital sees influx of kala azar, malaria patients

VOA News examines an influx of patients suffering from kala azar, also known as visceral leishmaniasis, and malaria in a South Sudan hospital, writing, "The pediatric ward at the main hospital in Bentiu is overcrowded and under-staffed as an unusually high number of children suffering from kala azar and malaria have been brought in for treatment."

15 Mar 2013

Objections from Vatican, Iran, Russia threatening CSW document

"Halfway into their two-week annual meeting, delegates to the Commission on the Status of Women fear they will not be able to agree on a final communiqué, just like last year," a New York Times editorial writes.

15 Mar 2013

New issue of 'Global Fund News Flash' available online

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has published Issue 15 of its newsletter, the "Global Fund News Flash."

15 Mar 2013

New approach to reduce gap between Western and traditional medicine

Scientists are reporting an advance toward overcoming a major barrier to tapping the potential of traditional Chinese medicine and India's Ayurvedic medicine in developing new and more effective modern drugs.

15 Mar 2013

VOA examines implications of sequestration on U.S. military malaria vaccine research

VOA News examines the implications of sequestration on the U.S. military's infectious disease research, noting "officials say the mandatory budget cuts ... will affect further testing of a potentially cutting-edge malaria vaccine, soon to be published."

14 Mar 2013

Examining the Global Fund's new funding model

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog features an interview with Deborah Derrick, president of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in which she discusses the Global Fund's new funding model.

13 Mar 2013

Implications of IOM PEPFAR evaluation for Global Fund

"The U.S. Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences recently completed a congressionally mandated impact evaluation of the PEPFAR HIV/AIDS program, which is the single largest ever health initiative of the U.S. government," Todd Summers, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies' (CSIS) Global Health Policy Center, writes in the center's "Smart Global Health" blog.

13 Mar 2013