topnaman | Malaria blog

(image credit: gandhiserve.org) What a stirring image! It’s one of my favorite photographs and depicts the potential of science to serve. The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences a medical university in Maharashtra, India devoted to rural health aptly adopted the image in its logo. The image was taken in 1940 in front of the Sevagram [...]

Check out the malaria lyrics in this smooth beat from The Himalayan Project. MCs Chee Malabar and Rainman paint scenes from rural India in a critique of romanticizing identity. Postcards from Paradise by Chee Malabar

No. According to a recent report by the Evidence to Policy Initiative (funded by the Gates Foundation which in turn also supported the ACT subsidy idea) . The conclusions are no surprise (see here and here for previous discussions on the idea of selling subsidized artemisinin combination therapy in pharmacies). The summary points were: Pilots [...]

The tragic Pakistan floods have apparently led to a phenomenon best understood as spider-trees. Words will not suffice; look at this picture: To avoid the water the spider, en mass, took refuge in nearby trees. The web encased trees snare most of the local mosquitoes reportedly leading to reduced malaria in the area (thanks Saket). [...]

Malaria mortality in India caused much controversy last fall. The study estimated almost 10 times the number malaria deaths in India during 2001-2003 compared to the estimates of the Government of India and WHO. The key strength of the work by Dhingra et al. was the use of a nationally representative sample of deaths during that [...]

Truth, with a little humor from one of my favorite comics XKCD:

The goal of this event is to honor the life of Sujal Parikh and to carry on his vision by bringing together a community to advance health and social justice. Themes for the symposium include curricula as an agent for social change, defining health equity, and innovations in global engagement. Date: March 26th, 2011 Location: [...]

6,000 Aedes mosquitoes (the species that transmits dengue) were released in an uninhabited site in the center of the country. The purpose of the field trial is to study the dispersal and life span of these modified mosquitoes under natural conditions. The idea is simple:  replace natural mosquitoes with insects engineered to be either resistant [...]

A host of information to keep you busy: Looks like RDTs through drug shops won’t work. The same story with subsidized drugs? Mass drug administration with ivermectin to reduce mosquito survival (very novel research with a drug better known for river blindness control) World Malaria Report 2010 – at a glance looks great but do [...]

via Gizmodo, the ‘brutal’ invasion of a red blood cell by a malaria parasite (thanks to Saket)!