Articles

Time for African leaders to take malaria seriously

Richard Tren | 22 Jul 2023 | The Daily Caller

Recent efforts, spearheaded in large part by the U.S. government, have reduced the annual malaria death toll from around 1 million to 800,000. There has also been an impressive increase in funding for research and development (R&D;) into new malaria-fighting tools.

Africa-India Summit: Leverage soft power to save people

Barun S. Mitra & Jasson Urbach | 24 May 2023 | Free Market Foundation

The second Africa-India Forum Summit will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in a two day event between 24 and 25 May and will set the stage for ongoing co-operation between the sub continent and Africa.

DDT a potent weapon against malaria

Kelvin Kemm | 20 May 2023 | Engineering News

World Malaria Day is celebrated in April each year. As this important day slips past unnoticed by most, it is worth pondering the disease for a while.

Precaution and funding of vector control must be based on evidence

Richard Tren & Donald Roberts | 18 May 2023 | Malaria Journal

In their paper "Status of pesticide management in the practice of vector control: a global survey in countries at risk of malaria or other major vector-borne diseases," van den Berg et al. make some generally accepted and valid arguments about the need for improved management of public health insecticides (PHIs).

AFM Observations on the 5th Conference of Parties of the Stockholm Convention

None | 29 Apr 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria

The final day of the COP5 focused on agreeing to and adopting decision points. Early on, the COP agreed on the listing of endosulfan in Annex A, much to the delight of almost all the delegations and NGOs.

Africans Tell the UN to Buzz Off

Roger Bate & Richard Tren | 28 Apr 2023 | American.com

Two weeks ago the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc of 15 African nations, said it would begin producing the insecticide DDT to combat malarial mosquitoes. This is a necessary reaction to damage caused by the illogical, misguided, and often untruthful campaign against DDT run by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Partners in Crime: National Theft of Global Fund Medicines

Roger Bate | 20 Apr 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria

Millions of dollars of donated antimalarial drugs have been stolen, most often by staff of recipient government medical stores; this strengthens criminal gangs and undermines donor intent. The main culprit donor is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which worryingly is pushing ahead with further schemes that have the same inherent weaknesses, which may worsen the theft problem.

Tim Lambert's smear campaign: A Response from Africa Fighting Malaria

None | 11 Mar 2024 | Africa Fighting Malaria

The blogger, Tim Lambert (aka Deltoid), regularly engages in the DDT debate by making ad hominem attacks on those who defend DDT in an effort to undermine their credibility. AFM has often been the target of such attacks and as a general policy, has not considered it a constructive use of our time to engage in these often misguided and pointless discussions.

Measuring the AMFm

Richard Tren & Kimberly Hess | 04 Mar 2024 | The Lancet

In discussing measurement of the effectiveness of the Affordable Medicines Facility—malaria (AMFm), Olusoji Adeyi and Rifat Atun (Nov 27, p 1869)1 claim that "Expectations of attributable and rapid increases in measures of service delivery at the household level, which are neither new nor unique to AMFm, are inappropriate and unrealistic within the duration of the pilot studies."

Aid Agencies Turning a Blind Eye to Stolen Drugs

Roger Bate | 03 Mar 2024 | Economic Affairs

Aid agencies aim to do good; those providing medicines for fatal diseases save lives. Last year the US 'President's Malaria Initiative' (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) between them bought about 120 million treatments, mainly for sub-Saharan Africa.