This review highlights the spectrum of complications in African children with severe malaria, the therapeutic challenges of managing these in resource-poor settings and examines in-depth the results from clinical trials with a view to identifying the treatment priorities and a future research agenda.
This commentary highlights why the epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa should not be forgotten when planning an eradication strategy, and why forgetting Africa will, once again, be the single largest threat to any hope for global eradication.
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To test the assumption that reductions in malaria in Africa will increase economic productivity, a correlation-regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact ofexpenditures by the US President’s Malaria Initiative for Africa (PMI), and increases in the economic productivity of countries included in the PMI. For the 12 most representative countries the per capita expenditures for malaria suppression in the 2011 budget of the PMI were compared with observed increases in per capita economic productivity. The measure of economic productivity used was the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period 2007 to 2011. With a mean annual expenditure for suppressing malaria slightly above 1 US dollar per capita (range 0.44-3.40), there was a positive but weak correlation of higher expenditures with increased economic productivity. The correlation coefficient r was 0.5. The increase in per capita GDP in these countries over the 4-year period varied between 60 and 200 USD. The slope of the regression line and thus the ratio of benefits to cost from this programme varied slightly between ecologic zones, but the mean was 6.75 to 1. This meant that there was an increase in per capita GDP of $6.75 for every $1 invested per capita in suppressing malaria. The high benefits to cost ratio from the PMI makes suppression of malaria by methods used by the initiative potentially an attractive investment, at least for the near future while the biocides and drugs deployed are still effective.
Background
Severe malaria remains a major cause of pediatric hospital admission across Africa. Invasive bacterial infection (IBI) is a recognized complication of Plasmodium falciparum malaria, resulting in a substantially worse outcome. Whether a biological relationship exists between malaria infection and IBI susceptibility remains unclear. We, therefore, examined the extent, nature and evidence of this association.
This review summarizes recent evidence regarding the correlation between ownership and use of ITNs and the determinants of both, in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa, and reviews interventions directed at improving coverage.
This contribution was posted as a comment by Dr. Bill Jobin, Director of Blue Nile Associates in response to the meeting report of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee that was held in September 2012.
It is ironic that a WHO policy meeting in September will ignore the terrible truth outlined by the WHO Director General Margaret Chan in December - that the malaria program is going to crash..... With due respect to Rob Newman and Margaret Chan in Geneva, I would like to suggest 6 steps to save their Global Malaria Program. My suggestions are simple applications of rational approaches to a problem, the same things we would do with any other problem in life. It does not take a Rocket Scientist to figure this out. Simply put, I suggest that they Narrow their Focus, Expand their Base, add 2 more Components to their Strategy, establish a valid Monitoring and Evaluation system, and set Realistic Goals against which they can Measure their Progress ......
This week I was contacted by Dr. Dana Dalrymple with a very unusual offer. He wishes to provide all MalariaWorld subscribers free access to his book 'Artemisia annua, Artemisinin, ACTs & Malaria Control in Africa' published just seven months ago. This is truly remarkable and we highly appreciate this gesture!
Last week, WHO published a statement regarding the potential of larviciding for malaria control in Africa. This followed the circulation of a draft version of the statement in August 2011. That draft was sent to a limited group of people (how many I don't know) for comments (including myself). I attach the official version to this editorial.
This guest editorial was written by Dr. Lotte Van Dijk in The Netherlands.
Many of you will have come across counterfeit or substandard drugs in your careers and I’m sure many of you will understand my frustration. Therefore, I was really happy to see that the study on poor-quality anti-malarials by Dr Paul Newton and his team got the attention of the media. Even though their study was not large-scale and even though it cannot provide an accurate estimation of the prevalence of the fake anti-malarials all over Africa, it does provide an insight into the seriousness of the problem: it is severe!
