Plotting the demise of malaria
Watch your back, malaria. Authorities on the disease from around the world gathered at Harvard Medical School (HMS) for a three-day session focused on establishing new research priorities demanded by a shift in international anti-malaria strategy, from control to eradication. Experts speaking at a public session Thursday (Jan. 20) said the changed goals for international malaria efforts, adopted in 2008, necessitate a fresh focus and new research priorities. Authorities said past efforts to control malaria targeted reducing illness and death from the disease, but not necessarily on preventing transmission, since people build up natural immunities, though slowly and over many years. “You have to move away from thinking about how to reduce morbidity and mortality to thinking about how to interrupt transmission,” said Marcel Tanner, director of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and co-chair of the Malaria Eradication Research Agenda. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that causes intense fever, headache, and even...