Global Malaria News

They approach with the telltale sign -- a high-pitched whine. It's a warning that you are a mosquito's next meal. But that mosquito might carry a virus, and now the virus is in you. Now, with the help of state-of-the-art technology, researchers can see how a virus moves within a mosquito's body, which could lead to the prevention of mosquitoes transmitting diseases.

Researchers spent two years testing chemical compounds for their ability to inhibit the malaria parasite at an earlier stage in its lifecycle than most current drugs, revealing a new set of chemical starting points for the first drugs to prevent malaria instead of just treating the symptoms.

The immediate need for funding nets far exceeds the amount we have available.

There is a currently unfunded need for AMF to provide 22 million nets for people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. DRC is one of the two largest contributors to malaria deaths and illness, so there is the potential to have an extremely large impact on health outcomes. The total funding gap is US$45 million.

Thanks to our donors' incredible commitment to fighting malaria, we have recently been able to sign agreements to fund 3.86 million nets for distribution in Guinea (Mar-Apr 2019) and 11.8 million nets for distribution in the Democratic Republic of Congo (April and November 2019). These nets will protect an estimated 28.1 million people.

The time to identify funding for the major gap in DRC is now in order to allow adequate time for preparations for what is a significant national-level logistics operation. Extensive planning is needed for proper accountability and transparency, which is particularly needed in a country such as DRC. This needs to be done prior to manufacture, international shipment and distribution within the country. The earlier funding can be identified in the next five months the better will be the preparations for the distribution.

This is the most significant opportunity AMF has had to date:

• protect 40.5 million people
• avert 10-15,000 deaths and 10-15 million cases of malaria
• improve GDP in DRC by an estimated $540m
• influence materially the accountability of the universal coverage campaign in one of the world's two most malarious countries
• slow down the growth of insecticide resistance which threatens to undermine the whole country net programme through the purchase of PBO nets

AMF is well placed to assist with this opportunity:

• a track record of successful multi-million net distributions
• direct experience and established relationships in DRC
• Global Fund partnership covers non net costs and reduces risk
• agreement for 11.8 nets recently signed with the Ministry of Health so no agreement hurdles to overcome
• our leadership in dealing with insecticide resistance through use of next generation nets

There is no other funding currently identified. The gap exists after all commitments from AMF, The Global Fund and other funders have been taken into account, including our latest commitment of nets.

This is not an 'all or nothing' situation, every extra net funded by our donors will fill the need of someone at risk from malaria and we remain exceptionally grateful to all donors of small or large amounts.

GiveWell has updated its top charity list and we are delighted to be ranked again as a top charity!

From GiveWell's recent update review of AMF:

"The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) is one of our top-rated charities, and an organization that we feel offers donors an outstanding opportunity to accomplish good with their donations."

"We believe that AMF is likely to be constrained by funding. There is a high degree of uncertainty in the maximum amount that AMF could use productively, but given AMF's track record of finding and filling funding gaps for LLINs and the large size of the global funding gap (estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for 2018-2020), we expect the maximum to be significantly greater than what AMF is likely to receive."

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?