Organizations Against Malaria

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QUESTION

What is a good organization that helps stop malaria?

ANSWER

There are many organizations that work very hard to control malaria. The most well known are those that design policies and implement projects to control malaria on the ground, in places where the disease is most deadly. These include multilateral international organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization (as well as its regional counterparts, such as the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO), country-led aid organizations such as DIfD in the UK and USAID in the US (the President’s Malaria Initiative, PMI, is largely implemented via USAID) as well as non-governmental organizations which seek to improve the lives of people in developing countries, such as Save the Children, Malaria No More and many other such groups.

Some of these groups have also joined forces to create multi-faceted organizations and programmes dedicated to controlling malaria, such as the Roll Back Malaria consortium and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which provides millions of dollars of funding to projects throughout the world.

Secondly, there is also an aspect to malaria control which is not so easily seen on the ground, and that is the vast numbers of researchers who are dedicated to finding new drugs to treat malaria, new methods for control and new insecticides to prevent transmission from mosquitoes, among many other examples. These researchers are found in universities and research institutes all over the world, including many in sub-Saharan Africa, India and other places where the burden of malaria is very high.

On our website, you can find some personal accounts of scientists, working for the global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, who are doing drug discovery research in Bangalore, India. There are also blog posts from scientists at Princeton looking at transmission of malaria between monkeys and humans in south-east Asia, and information about cutting edge research at the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco, whose members conduct work on a variety of aspects of malaria biology and control initiatives.

What does the goverment do to help malaria?

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QUESTION

Does the goverment help malaria?

ANSWER

Many governments around the world assist in controlling malaria. Some countries, like Australia and the United States, used to have malaria transmission occur within their own borders, but through dedicated control programs, have managed to eradicate the disease locally. In these cases, the government coordinated huge programs of draining standing water, spraying insecticides and ensuring that health clinics were equipped to diagnose and quickly treat any human cases.

Nowadays, the governments of the US and Australia, along with many other countries which do not have malaria, still assist in the fight against malaria by funding malaria control programs in other countries, either directly (for example, the US funds international health projects through the US Agency for International Development) or indirectly, through international organisations like the World Health Organisation and the Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria. They also provide training in technical expertise to scientists, doctors and clinicians from malaria-endemic countries.

The governments of countries which have malaria are also deeply engaged in fighting the disease, mostly through their respective Ministries of Health, which often have specific malaria departments. In India, for example, malaria control is carried out by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), which is part of the Directorate General of Health Services. The NVBDCP carries out a multi-pronged strategy to combat malaria, including early case detection and treatment, vector control (with spraying, biological control and personal protection), community participation, etc. In Uganda, the Malaria Control Programme also carries out the above activities, and also provides intermittent preventative treatment against malaria for young children and pregnant women and has in the past engaged in large-scale distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated bednets. Both countries also explicitly include monitoring and evaluation as part of their control strategies, to make sure that any interventions or control efforts they make are having a positive impact on reducing malaria morbidity and mortality.

IDRI, USAID to Collaborate on Malaria Vaccine Development

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The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) today announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on support of a collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) for the development of a new vaccine against malaria. The collaboration is for the development of a novel malaria vaccine, which combines WRAIR’s malaria antigen CelTOS with IDRI’s potent GLA-SE adjuvant.

Preclinical studies to date have shown that the combination of CelTOS and GLA-SE in a vaccine candidate produces potent immune responses in small animals, resulting in a protective immune response during the infectious mosquito-stage of malaria parasites.

Because of the conserved nature of the CelTOS antigen, immunized mice are protected against other distantly related malaria strains as well. USAID provided funds for WRAIR’s preclinical studies of this antigen, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded IDRI’s CelTOS-specific adjuvant development activities. A phase I clinical trial with human malaria challenge is being funded by USAID, the WRAIR, and the Gates Foundation grant awarded to IDRI.

Malaria is a devastating parasitic disease transmitted through the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The WHO estimates that more than two billion people live in malarious areas of the world in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. The emergence and spread of drug resistance, production and availability of counterfeit medications, and mosquito resistance to insecticides make the development of a safe, effective, and affordable malaria vaccine critical as an adjunct to other preventive measures. Because CelTOS is essential for establishing parasite infections in both the human and mosquito hosts, IDRI, USAID, and WRAIR are hopeful that the development of the CelTOS – GLA-SE malaria vaccine will provide a significant new approach to a human malaria vaccine, targeting prevention of both human disease and transmission of the parasite back to the mosquito.

“The collaboration with WRAIR illustrates again the broad utility of GLA-SE as a vaccine adjuvant,” Dr. Steven G. Reed, IDRI’s Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer, stated. “We are very excited to be moving this important project ahead and particularly pleased with the validating interest from USAID.”

“The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is pleased that both IDRI and USAID have partnered with us in helping support the development of malaria vaccines to prevent infection in children worldwide and to protect our men and women serving in uniform in areas of the world where malaria is still a major infectious disease,” said COL Christian Ockenhouse, Director of WRAIRs’ Malaria Vaccine Development Program.

Dr. Carter Diggs, Senior Technical Advisor for the USAID Malaria Vaccine Development Program added that, “In spite of dramatic progress in malaria control, the disease is still a major killer of children in the developing world. USAID is very pleased with this collaboration, which combines exploration of the vaccine potential of an untested, but promising malaria antigen with this leading edge adjuvant system.”

Source: PRNewswire

U.S. Investments to Battle Malaria Show Results

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Progress against Malaria is one area where U.S. investments in global health have made an great impact. Just five years ago, it was estimated that malaria killed nearly one million children annually in sub-Saharan Africa. The economic cost to the continent was estimated to be nearly $30 billion each year in lost productivity.

“Today, the U.S. along with its partners have helped cut malaria cases in half in more than 40 countries and reduced childhood malarial deaths by 200,000, and even seen a reduction in all-cause child mortality in seven initial Presidential Malaria Initiative countries,” said USAID Administrator Raj Shah. He added, “I find that statistic astounding.”

The President’s Malaria Initiative, which is led by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented jointly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has led the fight against this preventable and curable disease which is currently the leading cause of death among children in Africa.

“Today, we have a lot to celebrate, because the rates of death resulting from malaria infection are decreasing,” said Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator. “However, we need to be sobered by the job ahead of us.”

That’s because despite lower infection and death rates, and despite the fact that the disease is both preventable and treatable, it is estimated that a child in Africa still dies every 45 seconds from malaria.

The President’s Malaria Initiative, now a central part of the Global Health Initiative, was introduced in 2005 to concentrate on fighting the disease.  Its goal is to reduce malaria-related deaths by 50 percent in 15 focus countries by the year 2016.

[“We] believe we can push the Initiative’s success even further,” said USAID Administrator Raj Shah.  “Over the next five years, . . . .we can save an additional 500,000 lives a year, most of them young children.”

To do so, the U.S will work with partners to train health care workers to quickly identify whether a fever is caused by malaria; develop more effective insecticides that kill the mosquitoes without harming people; and we must find cheaper, more efficient ways to produce artemisinin.

“Finally,” said Dr. Shah, “we need to seek the ultimate answer to malaria: a cheap, effective vaccine. Through the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, USAID will support the development and testing of promising candidates.”

Source: VOA News

Republican Budget Cuts Would Kill 70,000 Children Worldwide, Says USAID Administrator

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The GOP’s budget would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children around the world who rely on American funding, according to the government agency in charge of foreign aid. Of the 70,000 deaths, 30,000 would come from slashing malaria control programs, 24,000 from lack of immunizations and 16,000 from unsafe birthing practices.

“I believe these are very conservative estimates,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah told a House Appropriations subcommittee this week.

Read more, via US News and World Report.