Ricardo Ataide's blog

As the first of its kind, the World Malaria Congress was a stunning success. The Congress organizing committee should be very proud. Grant you, it was not perfect, but first times seldom are. There was a certain rush in getting things done, an eagerness to bring to bed groups that should have had a coffee and a walk in the park beforehand in order to get to know each other's language and idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes. But the reality of it is that things got done. People engaged with each other and held productive discussions on sensitive topics.

I was wondering if any of your friends has sent you this link and asked you why we don't want the MMS miracle to be spread around... I'm still confused, not knowing if I should laugh or cry. But I'm inclined to cry...

Age: 24 Gestational age:: 37 wks Malaria history:

In malaria endemic areas, researchers and basic health workers need to and often do find ways to join forces and complement each others work. Nevertheless, the prevalent idea among a few who are higher up in the health services is that researchers, like myself, are only there for the "kill". Some of the complaints are that we have a limited time-span in the area, we take joy in seeing a patient who provides us with some parasites and we ultimately take without giving in return. I think that these are usually the things we hear most (and mostly through the grapevine...).

Day 3 of the course started on anti-malaria drugs. We discussed who should take them and some of their effects, what they should be used for ( treatment? Prevention?) and against what (just Pf? Pf and Pv? All parasites?). The most heated debates arose when the issue of resistance came about. Someone mentioned resistance to artemisinin and immediately some voices rose to say that that is still not a given. There are indeed reported cases of treatment that had to be extended but not of treatment failure as such, which means that, real resistance is still not fixed in the parasite population.