MESA Alliance's blog

ICREA Prof Hernando A. del Portillo studied molecular aspects of parasites at the University of Georgia, USA, where he received his PhD, followed by two WHO postdoctoral trainings at the New York University Medical Centre (USA) and the Institut Pasteur (France) where he specialized in molecular biology of malaria parasites.

Since 2006, PMI has partnered with countries hardest hit by malaria, supporting introduction and scaling of proven, life-saving malaria interventions protecting more than 570 million people at risk annually. In countries where PMI works, their investments have significantly contributed to a 27% decline in malaria cases and a 60% decline in malaria deaths.

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to evolve it is essential to mitigate risk of increased incidence of other infectious diseases. In malaria-endemic regions, it will be important to understand the potential impact to epidemiological changes, trends in transmission, and clinical presentation of COVID-19 and malaria individually, and as co-infections.

Watch the presentations from this symposium, in which different experts talked about the importance of malaria modeling to understand the epidemiology of the disease and to help in the decision-making process by testing different scenarios.

Watch the presentations from this MESA-organized symposium, which brought together a group of experts to address the latest advances in malaria chemoprevention and discuss the impact and challenges faced when translating and scaling up from the trials to the field.