As the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria heads into a secretive but highly contentious election of a new Executive Director, the names of several candidates reported to be on the shortlist, all US citizens, have surfaced. They include former Global Fund Executive Director Mark Dybul, former Trump appointee William Steiger and […] Continue reading ->
For decades, malaria has been one of Africa’s most persistent health challenges. In Ghana, it was once the leading cause of death for children under five. Bed nets and antimalarial drugs reduced deaths substantially, but by the mid-2010s, the pace of improvement had declined. Climate change was altering the length and intensity of transmission seasons. […] Continue reading ->
“Those are people who are being killed socially.” That is how Dr. Marcus Lacerda, Director of the WHO-hosted Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), describes children whose futures are shaped by repeated bouts of vivax malaria. Lacerda, who joined TDR in March 2026, has spent more than 25 years studying […] Continue reading ->
GENEVA – Malaria has adapted and evolved for at least 30 million years. The oldest identified samples of the parasite were found in mosquitoes preserved in amber, from a family of insects ancient enough to have shared the planet with the dinosaurs. How many millions of people it has killed across the roughly 300,000 years […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization has ‘pre-qualified’ Coartem® Baby, the first-ever malaria treatment for young infants of 4.5 kilograms or less. The combination treatment, now being rolled out in Ghana, aims to fill a longstanding gap in treatments available for children under the age of 5, who constitute three quarters of the estimated 610,000 malaria deaths […] Continue reading ->
GENEVA – As global health leaders gathered in Geneva on Monday to commemorate this year’s World Malaria Day, an advocacy forum featuring high-level diplomats addressed the rising threat of antimalarial drug resistance. Celebrations of medical progress and clinical discussions quickly gave way to discussion about a rapidly escalating malaria funding crisis, with more funding cuts […] Continue reading ->
Resistance to a key drug used to treat malaria in Africa is spreading. Experts warn action is now urgent and any delay will cost lives and create economic misery. Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is the main first-line malaria treatment used in Africa and the best available option, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). ACT […] Continue reading ->
Brazilian children from the Yanomami indigenous community will be the first in the world to get a single-dose paediatric treatment for relapsing malaria. The introduction of paediatric tafenoquine, developed by Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and pharmaceutical company GSK, marks a “major step” towards closing the treatment gap for children at risk of relapsing Plasmodium […] Continue reading ->
Scientists working on new malaria drugs now have access to an open-access artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform aimed at accelerating drug discovery, thanks to a partnership between Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and deepmirror. Drug Design for Global Health (dd4gh) uses “both predictive and generative AI to give researchers, especially those in the most resource-limited settings, […] Continue reading ->
Battered by a 58% cut from France, a delayed European Union (EU) pledge, and a US pullback, the Global Fund faces a significant shortfall, securing $12.64 billion against its $18 billion target during the 8th replenishment. According to the organization, reaching the full target would have prevented roughly 400 million new AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria […] Continue reading ->