The United Kingdom's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) published a "Postnote" document recently titled "Tackling Malaria in Developing Countries". The document aims to explain the UK government's contributions to achieving the 6th Millennium Development Goal, namely to "halt and begin to reverse the spread of malaria and other major diseases".
The report provides a brief description of the disease and the scope of the problem for developing countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa. The report then goes on to describe the tools available to tackle malaria, the international response to the disease and the barriers to progress.
While the report contains some interesting and important information, AFM is disappointed to find that, rather than taking the 'independent and balanced' view with which it is charged, POST itself ascribes to unscientific bias. Particularly we find that some recommendations could be counter-productive and some important information has been omitted due to this bias that will have a detrimental effect on UK policy to malaria control.
Read AFM's Full Commentary here.