topnaman | Malaria blog

I’m an author on an editorial in this month’s Bulletin of the World Health Organization on communicable diseases in Southeast Asia.
Excerpts:
Multidrug-resistant malaria, including artemisinin resistance at the border of Cambodia and Thailand, threatens to jeopardize the provision of effective antimalarial treatment worldwide…
A theme issue of the Bulletin will provide a forum for sharing the region’s […]

Today is world malaria day. It’s a day of advocacy and reflection. We have powerful tools against malaria (IRS, ITNs, combination therapies) and the disease is once again in the public eye. Thus, despite the challenges - which are both numerous and profound, a powerful sense of optimism remains. Let us seize the opportunity.

The answer is two according to Ministry of Health officials as reported by AllAfrica.com. Now, no one (hopefully) believes only two deaths have occurred and yet the figure is presented as fact. This is either a case of imprecise language on the part of a public health official or bad reporting by the news outlet. […]

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 […]