While Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) has been adopted as a malaria control strategy in regions with seasonal transmission, continued monitoring and evaluation of its effectiveness across diverse ecological, epidemiological, and healthcare settings remain critical for optimizing the intervention. This study aims to assess the ongoing population-level impact of SMC under...
Climate change can influence malaria incidence directly and indirectly, impacting vector and parasite dynamics, along with socioeconomic factors influencing malaria risk. In Zimbabwe there is a paucity of research linking climate change, environmental factors, and malaria incidence, hindering coordinated efforts for malaria elimination. Accordingly, the aim of the study was to...
The discovery of novel antimalarial drugs against Plasmodium falciparum has become globally urgent due to the consistent increase in mortality, morbidity, and drug resistance in endemic areas. Using an in-house library, novel antimalarial agents were identified through in vitro high-throughput screening (HTS) and meta-analysis. Hit compounds were selected from the primary HTS at...
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare delivery including malaria healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa. There is limited research exploring impact of COVID-19 on malaria healthcare utilization. This study explores the trends in disruption of malaria service utilization across 20 sub-Saharan African countries before, at the initial onset, and 1 year into the...
Malaria remains a major public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, making effective vaccine uptake a priority. Although individual factors such as awareness, education, and place of residence are known to influence vaccination decisions, there is a gap in understanding how these socio-economic attributes interact with social context to shape choices under peer influence. This...
Thrombocytopenia is a common haematological abnormality in malaria patients, increasing the risk of mortality in both children and adults with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax infections. In Rwanda, data on the prevalence and associated factors of severe thrombocytopenia in malaria patients are limited. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated...
Zanzibar has achieved historic reductions in malaria incidence, but high connectivity to mainland Tanzania and imported cases remain a challenge to “last mile” malaria elimination. To understand factors driving malaria importation, prospective surveys were administered to patients at 94 health facilities across Zanzibar’s main island, Unguja, from May 2022 to December 2023, and...
The World Health Organization recommends insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) as one of the main interventions to control malaria spread. The leading driver of this intervention is use of ITN; however, socio-demographic characteristics factors, access and possession of ITN could also influence its usage. Therefore, the present study aimed to document the factors associated...
Malaria remains a significant public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where vector control strategies, particularly insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS), have played a critical role in reducing transmission. However, the emergence and spread of insecticide resistance among malaria vectors threatens to undermine these gains. In response...
Malaria in pregnancy contributes significantly to poor maternal health outcomes, accounting for 17.6% of outpatient visits in Ghana. The Ashanti Region, particularly Sekyere South District, bears a high burden despite interventions, such as ITN distribution and intensified IPTp education. Limited evidence exists on how pregnant women’s knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP...
Paediatric cerebral malaria (CM) kills thousands of children globally each year. Despite multiple interventional trials, no adjunctive therapy has demonstrated a survival benefit. As CM is known to cause multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), failure to consider the immediate cause of death or cause-specific mortality may partially explain these negative findings...
Malaria remains a public health challenge with Nigeria having the highest burden in cases and deaths worldwide. Increased outdoor and indoor biting of Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l.) and large gaps in protection have become emerging challenges threatening malaria control efforts in Kebbi State, Nigeria. This study provided data on vector behaviour, the distribution, diversity...
Corticosteroids are sometimes used in clinical practice in the treatment of blackwater fever (BWF), a complication of severe malaria, despite limited evidence of benefit. This study aimed to compare the time to haemoglobinuria resolution between children with BWF who received corticosteroids and those who did not, and determine if corticosteroid use significantly influences this...
The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the countries with the heaviest burdens of malaria. To ensure that vector control tools, particularly insecticide-treated nets, remain effective as a prevention tool, entomological surveillance has been conducted throughout the country. In one location, early biting was noted by a majority of mosquitoes, morphologically identified as...
Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs) must retain bioefficacy after 20 washes to receive World Health Organization (WHO) prequalification. Days between washes (wash interval, WI), are determined using the regeneration time (RT) method. Mosquitoes are exposed to surface insecticide in a repeated measures experiment after washing. RT is the number of days required for mosquito mortality...
Malaria vector control strategies in sub-Saharan Africa have largely relied on the use of Insecticide Treated-mosquito Nets and Indoor Residual Spraying. However, after substantial reductions in malaria burden associated with the scale-up of these interventions, little progress has been achieved over the last decade. With the increase in insecticide resistance and outdoor biting...
Despite the proven effectiveness of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) in reducing malaria incidence and mortality, their usage among children in Africa remains inadequate. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to ascertain the prevalence of ITN usage for malaria control among children in Africa. This review was registered with Prospero (CRD42023474978). A search was...
The Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) is the most successful global childhood programme in reducing mortality and morbidity from vaccine-preventable diseases. Introducing the RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine into the routine health system added additional vaccination visits at 24 months. This study determined the factors contributing to compliance with EPI, including RTS, S...
Malaria, a potentially fatal infectious disease, remains a significant global health concern, mainly in tropical regions. In Europe, its incidence is currently low and predominantly travel-related. Thus, a timely diagnosis requires healthcare teams to consider malaria in their differential diagnoses and obtain a thorough travel history. In medical laboratories, despite the...
In Zanzibar, malaria epidemiology has changed within the past 10 years, from focal, near-elimination transmission to recurrent and more widespread outbreaks. The observed changes culminated in a large-scale epidemic between November 2023 and March 2024 including 23,569 confirmed malaria cases. This study investigated the epidemiological characteristics of the 21-week outbreak by...
This study focused on the importance of long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) in malaria control in a study area where socio-economic disparities are widening. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of LLIN ownership when nets were available for no more than two people, controlling for differences in socio-economic status (SES). It was hypothesized that LLIN...
Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have improved malaria case management by enabling point-of-care confirmation of infection, particularly in low-resource settings. In addition to clinical use, RDT results recorded in health facility registers are a critical component of national malaria surveillance systems. Recently, national programmes have explored using stored RDT cassettes to...
Malaria remains a significant public health challenge in District Shangla, Pakistan, exacerbated by ecological diversity, seasonal transmission, and limited health infrastructure. This 5-year epidemiological study aimed to assess malaria trends, species distribution, risk factors, and intervention outcomes from 2020 to 2024. A retrospective analysis was performed on 130,401...
The voices of Africans living in endemic malaria zones are rarely present in malaria decision making. This article lays out 4 distinct periods in Zanzibar’s malaria history, present evidence of the island’s past rebound epidemic in the 1970s-1980s and show that despite nearly a century of biomedical contact around malaria, there has not been prior information sharing/education...
Rebounding to a higher malaria endemicity level or remaining at the same level despite implementation of malaria control interventions has been reported in high-endemic areas of many sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Based on current trends, the 2030 targets of the World Health Organization, which aim for at least a 90% reduction in malaria mortality and morbidity, are out of...