First in a two-part series.

Tafenoquine, the first new drug to be developed in over 60 years to treat relapsing malaria, has in fact been around since the late 1970s, when researchers with the US Walter Reed Army Institute of Research first took note of its antimalarial properties. But the drug’s potential to cure relapsing malaria caused by the Plasmodium vivax parasite, the less deadly but most widespread malaria species, has only been recently been recognised. Continue reading ->

Image Credits: MMV/Vivian Zanata, MMV/Damien Schumann.

[Second in a two-part series]

“The main challenge we have in the management of vivax malaria is adherence to treatment, which is only 62% at the moment. Tafenoquine’s great advantage [is] that it can be administered in a single dose. This would significantly increase adherence, consequently increasing the cure rate in endemic areas, and reducing the relapse rate.” – Professor Alejandro Llanos Cuentas, Alexander von Humbold Institute of Tropical Medicine, Cayetano Heredia University, Lima, Peru.

Alejandro Llanos-Cuentas has been fighting P vivax malaria in Peru throughout most of his professional life. For many years, he failed to see significant inroads in control of the disease, which is most prevalent in the remote communities of the country’s Amazon region. Continue reading ->

Image Credits: Alejandro Llanos Cuentas.

The World Health Organization Executive Board is being asked this week to consider a steep budget increase to cover the ambitious new “Transformation Plan” of Director General Tedros Adhanom Gheyebresus, which aims to improve the health of at least 3 billion people by 2025.

The 8 percent budget hike requested for 2020-2021 will be reviewed by the Board along with a range of critical policy issues when it meets for its 144th session from 24 January-1 February. Here’s what you need to know to follow the action. Continue reading ->

Image Credits: Flickr – Elaine Smith.

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA — Criminalisation of HIV/AIDS transmission, a widespread phenomenon in Africa, is undermining efforts towards fighting the disease.

This emerged during the Science Forum South Africa (SFSA), attended by some 3,000 researchers, scientists, policymakers and students from all over the world. The forum, which ran from 12-14 December in Pretoria, is Africa’s premier science, technology and innovation event. Continue reading ->

Image Credits: Justus Wanzala.