topnaman | Malaria blog

At the beginning of this month Gates announced the second round of its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative. The original Grand Challenges in Global Health sought to identify the most critical scientific challenges in global health and direct funding towards solving them. The Explorations Initiative, which accepted its first round of applications last spring, seeks to fund even bolder, less conventional ideas which have never been tested. The program provides $100,000 and requires only a 2 page application. Successful completion of the project and demonstration of proof-of-concept enables recipients to apply for a second level of increased funding. With this round, the foundation added a topic of particular interest: “Create New Tools to Accelerate the Eradication of Malaria”. Some examples include:

New interventions designed to target human and vector populations that are hardest to reach

New interventions that will be valued and used by individuals and communities even after malaria rates fall and the perceived threat of the disease is low

New tools and technologies for monitoring and surveillance of the pathogen, including methods to detect latent and subclinical infection in both human and non-human reservoirs and vectors

New tools and approaches for reducing malaria transmission, especially from low levels to zero

New strategies to apply interventions to populations, such as those considering the underlying heterogeneity of human, mosquito, and parasite populations in space and time

Political and financial commitments will be first and foremost towards embarking on any major effort. Obtaining these (with some level of confidence) is a perilous proposition in itself but will not be sufficient for many parts of the world which have high vectorial capacity (in plain English – really efficient mosquitoes). Data from a number of long term field trials and mathematical models along indicate our inability to eliminate parasite reservoirs in these areas even with near universal application of current interventions. Whether eradication should be on the table is another question altogether, but if Gates is serious about eradicating malaria then finding new tools is a solid move.