Global Malaria News

We are delighted to report that we - all of us together - have now reached a cumulative total since AMF started of US$180 million raised!

This has been possible through the support of 112,000 people in 189 countries who have made 386,392 donations. Our smallest single donation has been US$1, our largest US$22.8 million. And every donation matters as each US$2 buys a net and protects two people when they sleep at night from the bites of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

These funds equate to 81 million nets protecting 145 million people with an estimated 65,000 lives saved and 65 million cases of malaria averted. The positive contribution to GDP is estimated to be $2.2 billion.

Thank you for all your support!

We are privileged to witness first-hand the generosity, and repeated generosity, of donors and receive truly wonderful letters and emails of good wishes and support. Thank you for your confidence in our work.

There is a significant gap between the nets we can fund and the requests we currently have so we will continue to work hard to contribute all we can to close the net funding gaps that exist.

Researchers have generated six Zika virus antibodies that could be used to test for and possibly treat a mosquito-borne disease that has infected more than 1.5 million people worldwide.

Conversion from the asexual to the sexual phase of the malaria parasite is necessary for its transmission to the mosquito.

Malaria parasites know good times from bad and plan their offspring accordingly, scientists have found, in a development that could inform new treatments.

A balanced production of pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines at two years of age protects against clinical malaria in early childhood, according to a new study. The results also indicated that early exposure to the parasite does not affect the risk of developing the disease, although it could affect the parasite-specific immune response later in life.

AMF has signed an agreement with the DRC Ministry of Health to fund 11.8 million nets for distribution from April to December 2019. This represents 40% of DRC’s long-lasting insecticide treated net (LLIN) need for the 2019 portion of their three-year rolling universal coverage campaign.

The nets will be distributed in five of DRC's 26 provinces, specifically:

• Equateur: 1.5m nets to protect 2.7m people, distribution during April 2019
• Sud Ubangi: 1.9m nets to protect 3.4m people, distribution in June 2019
• Tanganyika: 2.0m nets to protect 3.6m people, distribution in Q3 2019
• Haut Katanga: 4.0m nets to protect 7.2m people, distribution in Q4 2019
• Haut Lomami: 2.4m nets to protect 4.3m people, distribution in Q4 2019

In total, 21.2 million people will be protected.

Malaria is one of the primary health issues in DRC, with high incidence levels seen across the majority of the country. DRC is one of the two most malarious countries in the world with malaria responsible for the deaths of at least 100 children under 5 each day in DRC alone.

These nets have the potential to play a major part in reducing deaths and illness. This quantity of nets could be expected to prevent 8,000 deaths, 8 million cases of malaria and make a material impact on the economy of DRC. It is estimated that the improvement in GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a measure of economic performance, would be about US$280 million.

AMF allocates individual donations to specific distributions and so far we have allocated 28,040 individual donations from 12,941 donors from 94 countries. These figures will increase as further donations are allocated. Many donations, large and small, help fund these nets.

We will report openly on progress and performance throughout and after the distribution.

Key elements of our agreement include:

• AMF is funding 11,800,000 LLINs for distribution in 2019
• This is a co-funding partnership with non-net costs (shipping, pre-distribution, distribution) funded by the Global Fund
• To support accurate data gathering, re-checks of net need numbers will take place by re-visiting a material number of households chosen at random.
• AMF will collect household registration data from the entirety of a proportion of villages as an independent check on registration and population numbers
• Household-level data will be collected on paper or using electronic-devices and then entered into AMF’s Data Entry System (DES) for analysis and verification. This, and the above elements combined, are the basis for a highly accountable distribution.
• Post-distribution monitoring of net use and condition (PDMs) will take place every nine months for two and a half years in all districts. AMF will fund this.

Distribution in Equateur and Sud Ubangi

Distribution in Tanganyika, Haut Katanga and Haut Lomami

Mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles are well known as primary vectors of malaria. But a new study suggests that Anopheles species, including some found in the United States, also are capable of carrying and transmitting an emerging pathogen, Mayaro virus, which has caused outbreaks of disease in South America and the Caribbean.

A new study shows for the first time the impact that climate change is having on the rate in which mosquitoes diversify, and what this might mean for human health in the future.

As the global battle against malaria stalls, scientists may be adding a novel tool to the fight: sniffer dogs. In recent tests trained sniffer dogs successfully diagnosed malaria infections simply by sniffing samples from socks worn briefly by children from a malaria endemic area of West Africa, according to a new study.

Thanks to an innovative mosquito control approach, residents in several Maryland neighborhoods reduced populations of invasive Asian tiger mosquitoes by an impressive 76 percent, on average.

Scientists investigating how the human immune system defends against malaria have uncovered a rare phenomenon: antibodies working together to bind to a vulnerable spot on the parasite.

Question: Can I take anti malaria to treat a diagnosed malaria disease at 39 weeks of pregnancy without it affecting my estimated delivery date (EDD).

Question: What is the available malaria image data set for research purpose? Answer: I’m not sure what you mean by image data sets for research purposes. The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO) has a section dedicated to malaria, where researchers can share datasets. The link is here: https://www.iddo.org/research-themes/malaria. For images specifically, you may need to reach out […]

To be able to reproduce and become effective disease carriers, mosquitoes must first attain optimal body size and nutritional status. A pair of researchers have succeeded in using CRISPR-Cas9, a powerful tool for altering DNA sequences and modifying gene function, to decrease mosquito body size, moving the research one step closer to eliminating mosquitoes that carry dengue fever and Zika virus.

Host decoy traps which mimic humans or cattle by combining odor, heat and a conspicuous visual stimulus could be effective at measuring and controlling outdoor-biting mosquitoes in malaria endemic regions.

Question: What is the trend of malaria in different regions of Ethiopia?

An insulin-binding protein in fruit flies could provide new opportunities for tackling disease-carrying mosquitoes, such as malaria and yellow fever.

Question: Hello, I’m wondering if I should be worried about whether my malaria will come back or not. I came down with Falciparum in the US and was treated with malarone pills (four pills a day for three days); was ill enough to be hospitalized, but did not have severe malaria. About a week and […]

New research shows how the cyto-adhesion of plasmodium-infected red blood cells is enhanced at febrile temperatures.

Researchers have documented the permissible limits of a number of chemicals that are often part of anti-malarial efficacy tests. Their results provide a previously undetermined dataset on drug reconstitution conditions at which both the red cell integrity and plasmodium growth and proliferation are not compromised.