Hitting malaria from all sides
Death rates from malaria have fallen significantly over the last decade, but plenty of work remains, with hundreds of thousands of children still dying from the disease every year, experts said Wednesday in a discussion at Harvard Kennedy School. The Harvard Malaria Forum gathered experts from the corporate and nonprofit sectors as well as academia to explore business approaches toward the goal of eliminating malaria deaths in the world. Panelists discussed companies’ efforts to fight malaria among employees, manufacture bed nets, distribute nets along supply chains, and alert government officials, concerned about foreign exchange, to the impact the ailment has on workers. International efforts over the last decade have paid off, reducing the malaria mortality rate from more than a million a year — where it stood for decades — to less than 700,000. Further, in places where malaria control measures are in place, mortality in children from all causes has fallen by...