Jasson Urbach & Julian Harris | 27 Sep 2023 | ModernGhana.com
The UN convened this week in New York to discuss its Millennium Development Goals and the aim of "ending poverty by 2015." Delegates and a rock star boasted of billions of dollars transferred to African governments, while failed schemes prompted activists to call for even more money. Donors re-branded the failed Roll Back Malaria scheme and promised US$3 billion.
None | 19 Sep 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria
Malaria is an extremely devastating and complex disease, and controlling it is neither simple nor easy. Successful and sustainable malaria control programs have an integrated and balanced approach that covers all of the technical, research, and scientific components of malaria control. These programs also have firm political commitments by national governments that ensure sustainable funding and support for malaria control, and policies that are guided by scientific evidence. A good example of a successful and sustainable program is the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI).
Jasson Urbach | 18 Aug 2023 | iafrica.com
In the last week of July the malaria community from the East and Southern Africa regions came together in Lusaka, Zambia for their annual planning and review meeting. This important meeting provides a forum to review the malaria control programmes of each of the 22 countries in the region and this year's specific theme was "Improving Malaria Diagnosis".
Francois Maartens | 04 Aug 2023 | African Executive
For many years, the politics of malaria
control have been such that IRS and the use of DDT have been
discouraged either officially by WHO or de facto by donor agencies that
have failed to provide funding for IRS programs.
Roger Bate | 19 Jul 2023 | Washington Post
The Justice Department and the Food and Drug Administration are looking into whether Ranbaxy Laboratories, one of the world's biggest makers of generic drugs, manufactured substandard HIV drugs that were administered to thousands of poor Africans under a contract with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Wall Street Journal reported this week. But this type of tragedy has already affected American consumers.
None | 08 Jul 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria
AFM welcomes the work that the UK's All Party Parliamentary Group on Malaria (APPMG) does to increase the profile of the disease in the UK and improve malaria control and treatment. The APPMG's July Statement, "Focus on Delivery to Achieve Sustained Impact" rightly recognizes the problems of many malarial countries as "weak health systems and limited numbers of skilled health workers." However AFM is concerned that the Responses that the APPMG has detailed will be insufficient to tackle these problems.
None | 01 Jul 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria
Media coverage of malaria treatment focuses mostly on public sector drug delivery and new formulations of drugs under development. However, most anti-malarial drugs are obtained in the private sector, and few of the widely discussed drugs are actually bought by most Africans. This bulletin is the first in a series of papers discussing some of the less documented issues related to access of anti-malarial drugs in private and public settings.
Richard Tren | 06 Jun 2023 | New York Times
AFM Director Richard Tren writes in the New York Times, "Malaria control requires more than just nets. An associated danger with the grass-roots efforts is that simple but effective marketing messages conceal the fact that the disease is very complex and difficult to control. Along with nets, indoor spraying with insecticides is an essential, but poorly financed, method of malaria control. Improving access to high-quality malaria medicines is crucial, especially with the prospect of drug resistance ever present." This is the goal of the March of Washingtons - raising awareness of and funding for access to good quality malaria drugs.
Carlos Odora | 21 May 2023 | New Vision
Although malaria is preventable and curable, it is reported to claim 320 lives daily in Uganda. Recently, however, efforts to reduce these deaths have improved with more widespread use of insecticide-treated nets, indoor spraying with insecticides and better access to effective new Artemisinin combination medicine. Many people still access medicines from private pharmacies and shops.
Jasson Urbach | 16 May 2023 | Sowetan
Jasson Urbach reports on AFM's recently released study: Antimalarial Drug Quality in the Most Severely Malarious Parts of Africa - A Six Country Study in South Africa's newspaper the Sowetan.