Malaria News and Research

Latest Malaria News and Research

Lack of access to water, sanitation in urban areas contributes to disease, impacts economies, water conference hears

"How best to provide clean water and sanitation to the world's cities and their expanding slums is the overriding theme of World Water Week, which opened Monday in Stockholm," Deutsche Presse-Agentur/M&C reports.

24 Aug 2011

Climate shifts may threaten to increase spread of malaria, health experts say

"Shifts in the world's climate and responses to those shifts – including construction of more irrigation systems – threaten to increase the spread of malaria, health experts say," AlertNet reports.

23 Aug 2011

Gains against malaria recognized on World Mosquito Day

Sarah Kline, executive director of Malaria No More UK, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog" about World Mosquito Day, which is recognized annually on August 20 to commemorate the discovery 114 years ago that female mosquitoes transmit malaria among humans.

23 Aug 2011

Isconova expands Matrix M collaboration with Genocea to treat infectious diseases

Isconova AB, a leading international vaccine adjuvant company and Genocea Biosciences, Inc., a vaccine discovery and development company pioneering a new class of T cell‐based vaccines, today announced the expansion of their collaboration granting Genocea the right to use Isconova's Matrix M in vaccines targeting two additional diseases.

23 Aug 2011

New open access journal on malaria

A post in the "Malaria Matters" blog announces "a new open access journal on malaria: Malaria Chemotherapy, Control and Elimination," which "has been recently launched by Ashdin Publishing."

22 Aug 2011

Micro-organisms hide themselves from immune defences

That micro-organisms have a great capacity to vary their surface structure is well known. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to develop vaccines against HIV and malaria, and why new influenza vaccines have to be produced every year. But it seems that these micro-organisms are also able to completely avoid activating a strong immune response in the person attacked.

22 Aug 2011

Research on why and how malaria parasites go undetected in the placenta of pregnant women

Collaborative research between LSTM and the University of Copenhagen, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have answered a long standing mystery, why and how malaria parasites go unnoticed by the immune defences of pregnant mothers.

20 Aug 2011

USAID announces expansion of indoor residual spraying program in Africa

USAID is expanding its Indoor Residual Spraying program in Africa, according to a USAID press release. Through a $189 million, three-year contract, "the President's Malaria Initiative … together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will provide technical and financial support to the Ministries of Health and National Malaria Control Programs in African countries to build country-level capacity for malaria prevention activities," according to the release.

19 Aug 2011

U.K., Islamic countries pledge additional funds for famine aid in Somalia

During a visit to the Somali capital of Mogadishu, U.K. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell on Wednesday pledged an additional $41.5 million in aid to Somalia, to be distributed through UNICEF, BBC News reports.

19 Aug 2011

Cerus to support ongoing development of INTERCEPT red cell system

Cerus Corporation announced today that it has received a $2.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense to support the advanced development of the company's technology for inactivating pathogens and leukocytes in red blood cells.

19 Aug 2011

New quick malaria diagnostic test may help reduce overtreatment

"Health workers often treat patients for malaria even when a test indicates a different cause of the illness," a behavior seen across sub-Saharan Africa "that worries many health experts," PRI's The World reports.

19 Aug 2011

Use of insecticide-treated bednets linked to local resurgence of malaria, study says

"Insecticide-treated bednets, whose use is being widely promoted in Africa to combat malaria, may paradoxically be linked to local resurgence of the disease," according to a study published in the Lancet on Thursday, the Independent reports.

19 Aug 2011

Mosquitoes fast to develop resistance against insecticide-treated bed nets

According to a study from Senegal mosquitoes are quick to develop resistance to insecticide-treated nets. This has raised concerns that a leading method of preventing the disease may be less effective than previously thought.

18 Aug 2011

New collaboration for development of new malaria vaccine

"The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) today announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on support of a collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) for the development of a new vaccine against malaria," an IDRI press release states.

18 Aug 2011

Washington Post examines history, future of mosquito control efforts

The Washington Post looks at the history and future of disease-carrying mosquitoes, "the most deadly non-human animal on the planet." The newspaper describes several mosquito-control methods, and poses the question, "If scientists could find a way to wipe out all mosquitoes - recent studies have shown that it may be possible to chemically sterilize males and dupe the females into mating with them - would that be a good idea?".

17 Aug 2011

PERCH study to look at current and likely future causes of childhood pneumonia

Pneumonia kills more children around the world than any other disease, but the last major effort to study the causes of childhood pneumonia across many countries was conducted in the 1980's. This week, a groundbreaking new study called the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study gets off the ground.

17 Aug 2011

East African profiles new GAVI Alliance CEO Seth Berkley

The East African profiles Seth Berkley, the new CEO of the GAVI Alliance and founder and former CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

16 Aug 2011

Bird malaria in Britain worries experts

British birds are being increasingly detected with malaria. Two decades back few British species showed regular signs of infection but now some 30 types are infected, monitoring projects have found. The problem is linked to a rapid growth in mosquito populations, which is attributed to a rise of about 1 degrees centigrade in global average temperature, say experts.

15 Aug 2011

Climate change to affect spread of malaria in India, study says

Over the next 20 years, "[c]limate change is likely to spread malaria to new areas in the Indian Himalayas, and lengthen the periods in which the infection is spread in a number of districts, according to projections [.pdf] from" researchers at the National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR), Delhi, and published in a special issue of Current Science on Wednesday, SciDev.Net reports.

12 Aug 2011

U.S Global Malaria Coordinator discusses U.S. investment in global fight against malaria

In a Malaria Policy Center "Malaria Watch TV" video post, U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer "speaks with the Malaria Policy Center about the status of the malaria fight and how the U.S. is leading the way against this preventable and treatable disease," the organization writes.

12 Aug 2011