topnaman | Malaria blog

Studying health delivery means figuring out which techniques work for getting the interventions to the people who need them the most. It means studying how to scale effective techniques, and studying how we can speed up policy making processes. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Unfortunately, its rarely done and certainly without the scientific rigor we apply [...]

Recently, we discussed President Bush’s legacy in Africa and his efforts to tackle HIV/AIDs and malaria (see my previous post here). In the midst of his Africa tour, Bush added another feather to his cap announcing a new plan to tackle neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). For 2008, NTD aid is set at $15 million targeting [...]

Much of the world still diagnoses malaria clinically (based on symptoms alone without testing for the presence of the parasite). Recently, a Liverpool team working in Mozambique examined the cost to individual patients resulting from the clinical diagnosis of malaria (Malaria Journal – open access). The findings were striking but certainly not surprising. 23 percent [...]

President Bush is on a five country tour through Africa visiting Benin, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, and Liberia. According to the news, the president has been well-received with large crowds following him in the hopes to glimpse a man they see as a strong supporter. Under the current administration, aid to these countries is [...]

Ray Chambers, a successful US businessman and philanthropist, was named the UN special envoy for malaria by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Chambers has been charged with a monumental task – to raise $8-$10 billion dollars for malaria control over the next five years and bring malaria mortality as close to zero as possible.
Such grand, disease-specific [...]

Apparently, loitering gangs of teenagers have been wreaking havoc on UK businesses. In response, some shops have adopted a clever, albeit controversial, solution called the Mosquito which takes advantage of age-related differences in hearing abilities. The device emits an irritating high-frequency sound audible only to teens. If that wasn’t enough, someone decided the Mosquito [...]

The NY Times covered some controversy surrounding the expanding influence of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The complaints highlighted by WHO malaria director, Arata Kochi, were two-fold: the risk posed to independent review and diverse viewpoints amongst researchers, and the unwelcome intrusion of the Gates Foundation in the policy-making process.
I think the real questions [...]