E-interview with Dr. Silas Majambere (Burundi, 1975)
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Dr. Silas Majambere is a medical entomologist who took up the position od senior scientist with the Innovative Vector Control Consortium recently. MalariaWorld asked Silas about his past work and future ambitions in the field of malaria elimination.You have been working directly in the field of operational malaria control in The Gambia using larval control. What is your current opinion on the role of larval control? Is it indeed a matter of ‘few, fixed, and findable’ sites or is there a wider role for larval control?
I have spent four years in The Gambia investigating the role of larviciding for malaria control. The program covered 400 km2 of floodplains with ground teams of spraymen applying Bacillus thuringiensis Israelensis (Bti) weekly to all water bodies we had previously mapped. This was indeed hard work at +40 degrees Celsius, and I commend the team that took the task. Unfortunately we only had a small impact on adult mosquito density and were not able to show a reduction in malaria prevalence following the larviciding program.
There were two main reasons we were not able to show impact: (1) the extent of the floodplains is simply too large to spray by ground teams, unless bigger teams are deployed; (2) Gambia river is highly tidal and Bti is likely to have been washed away after application.
Larval source management (LSM) has a role in malaria control, and it is not just my opinion, but it is historically proven (Brazil, Israel, USA, etc.). Although I understand the caution around “few, fixed and findable”, those terms are very relative and should not distract us.
Many African countries have adopted LSM for malaria control, and it is one of the tools in their Strategic Plans. While the scientific community is debating, the train has moved, and we’d better catch up and support the countries adopt best practices for LSM, including robust monitoring and evaluation, and use of WHOPES recommended products. With the technology we have today, I believe we can design better LSM programs than 80 years ago in Brazil.
E-interview with Marc Coosemans, senior full professor, medical entomology unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. The team and collaborators of Prof. Coosemans were recently awarded a $ 3 million grant by the Gates Foundation, to study the effects of community-wide use of topical repellents on malaria in Cambodia, when used in conjunction with insecticide-treated bednets.
Professor Tanner is Chief Executive of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), based in Basel. He is an epidemiologist and chair of medical parasitology and epidemiology at the University of Basel. Besides this, he is engaged in numerous activities and initiatives that research and control communicable diseases, notably malaria. 
Brian Greenwood is Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. From 2001 -2009 he directed the Gates Malaria Partnership which supported a programme of research and capacity development in many countries in Africa directed at improving treatment and prevention of malaria. In 2008, he became director of a new capacity development initiative supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Malaria Capacity Development Consortium (MCDC), which operates a post-graduate malaria training programme in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and he also directs a new consortium (MenAfriCar) established with support from the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to study meningococcal carriage in Africa.
Dr. Jobin has been a very active member of MalariaWorld over the last seven months. Time to interview him and get some feedback on his views regarding malaria control and elimination in Africa. 
Dr. El-Sayed is currently working at the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (TMRI) in Khartoum, Sudan where she leads the malaria research group. She is responsible for managing malaria research projects, availing national and international financial support for research activities, seeking financial and technical support for rehabilitation and capacity building of the laboratories.
Dr. Dondorp is the Deputy Director and Head of malaria research at the Mahidol-Oxford Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand, where he plans, coordinates and supervises clinical and laboratory malaria studies.
Dr. Corbel is currently a senior researcher at IRD, and based at the CREC in Cotonou in Benin. Following five years of heading the WHO collaborating centre for the evaluation of new public health pesticides he moved to Benin where he undertakes highly interesting studies aimed at improving vector control across Africa.
Raphael N’Guessan is a Medical Entomologist and West Africa 
Dr. Gunilla Priebe recently graduated from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) on a most interesting topic. She advocates further Africanisation of malaria research based on her study of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria. Some questions for Gunilla... 