topnaman | Malaria blog

The Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm, previously introduced here) may go down as one of the largest failures in public health history. Subsidizing effective antimalarials (namely artemisinin-combination therapies) for sale through private vendors (largely the wide-spread pharmacy/drug kiosk) is an untested idea for increasing access – yet is backed by more than $225 million [...]

It worked. Really well. Vivax malaria can relapse from liver stages (hypnozoites) adding to patient burden and further transmission. In tropical settings, upwards of 50-80% of patients may relapse within 1-3 months of the primary infection. Treating the dormant liver stages, which are unaffected by standard therapies, requires 14 days of treatment with primaquine. Adherence [...]

WWARN (previously introduced here) has released their interactive data viewer. It is fantastic to see and use. Viewing the tabulated data for any study (as opposed to just summary data) is a bit tricky: > click on the study icon on the map > look to the bottom left of the pop-up > click investigate [...]

ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) inaugurates a task force towards this end. I’ll just raise my eyebrow at this one. (Related, via the great TropIKA): Professor Chris Whitty, Head of Research for the UK Department for International Development, considers that malaria elimination is “most popular where it’s least attainable” and “most realistic [...]

We’ve talked about the looming threat of artemisinin-resistant malaria and its spread before (here and here). Well the Gates Foundation funded containment project for the P. falciparum strains along the Thai-Cambodia border has a blog. And it looks terrific – from vivid photos, an interview with Dr Wichai Satimai (director of the Thai Bureau of [...]