#malaria

I love all the hard work you do and I really appreciate it. I'm currently learning biology and I'm starting to get really into it. I hope that you are well all the time, and that you have all the luck and happiness in your future. You inspired me to study biology, and I'm really grateful for it. Thank you once again!

With love and respect,

An anonymous amino acid creature

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Closest match: Plasmodium sp. DRC-Itaito genome assembly, chromosome: 10 Common name: Unclassified Malaria-Causing Parasite

This video shows the reality we are living in right now.

We are starving. Many of us have gone days without proper food, and the situation is getting worse every day. At the same time, illness is spreading quickly among us malaria, typhoid, and cholera are affecting so many in our community. Some are very sick and growing weaker, yet we have little to no access to medication.

Our shelters are falling apart and cannot properly protect us. When it rains, we are exposed. When the sun is too strong, we have no safe place to rest. On top of this, we are now two months behind on rent, and we are at risk of losing even the little shelter we have left.

💔 For 3 months now, our campaign has received no donations.We have only raised 5,154 CAD out of our goal of 20,000 CAD and the needs are becoming more urgent every single day.

We are humbly begging for your help. Any support no matter how small can help provide food, medication, and safe shelter. Your kindness could truly save lives.

Please, stand with us. Share, donate, and help us survive this moment.

🙏🏽

PEACE

Tagging peoplefor reach

Egypt has been certified as malaria free, with the World Health Organization (WHO) calling the achievement “truly historic” and the culmination of nearly a century of work to stamp out the disease. “Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilisation itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history and not its future,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement on Sunday. “This certification of Egypt as malaria-free is truly historic, and a testament to the commitment of the people and government of Egypt to rid themselves of this ancient scourge.”

"Dr James Odongo sat eating greens at a restaurant in Apac district in northern Uganda when his phone rang. The Ministry of Health had included Apac on its list of the 105 hard-hit districts that would be included in the first roll-out of the new malaria vaccine.

Odongo – who is the health officer for the district – felt ecstatic. Malaria, a leading cause of death in Uganda and most of Africa, had killed 41 children under five years in the district in 2024. This vaccine had been proven to help avert the severe forms of the disease that are responsible for most childhood malaria fatalities...

“The Ministry and WHO had set most of the guidelines for the roll-out exercise, including a directive that the vaccine be integrated into routine immunisation,” said Odongo in an interview with VaccinesWork. “But we wanted to familiarise our nurses and other health educators with details about the vaccine – and why it is administered in four doses (at 6, 7, 8 and 18 months) to give children optimal protection.”

“We wanted our nurses and other frontline health workers to understand how the vaccine worked so they could explain it to mothers and other community leaders,” he said. “We wanted to get on top of any misinformation that could cause hesitancy, and encourage mothers to bring their eligible children for the vaccination.”

Apac can’t wait

Odongo and team conducted an aggressive, thorough community awareness campaign to let people know that vaccine would soon be available, and how the ground-breaking antigen would soon help to tamp down the incidence of severe malaria in children under five years.

But unknown to Odongo and team, most of the mothers and community leaders in the district were as enthusiastic about the vaccine as the health professionals were, and looking forward to the roll-out.

The community’s eagerness was evident when the Ministry, in partnership with Gavi and the World Health Organization, launched the vaccine in the district on 2 April. Hundreds of mothers and community leaders from across the country and district thronged the function, presided over by Minister of Health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, seeking the jab. For many of them, there weren’t enough hours in the day: health workers could only vaccinate 245 children before it got dark.

Holiver Atim, whose baby was vaccinated that day, said she wouldn’t have missed out on the opportunity – not after losing her firstborn to malaria. “I was one of the first people to arrive at the venue that day,” she said. “Malaria has taken so much from our family. So, if there was a chance that the vaccine would protect my other child, I wanted him to have it.”

Hard-bitten

A study published in the Open Journal of Statistics shows that Apac has the highest number of infectious mosquito bites globally, estimated at 1,500 per person a year – the reason the district also posts one of the highest malaria incidence and death rates in the country...

“Malaria is such a big burden here,” said Odongo. “It is the leading cause of severe illness and death in children under five years. We have a slight drop in cases during the dry season, but when the rains return and the swamps are saturated, cases surge right back.”

A ‘godsend’

The vaccine is a godsend, he said. The Ministry allocated an initial volley of 7,700 doses of the R21/Matrix-M vaccine to the district – although it targeted to vaccinate at least 9,225 children. As soon as Odongo and team received the vaccine they integrated it into the district’s routine immunisation so nurses at each of its 19 vaccinating health facilities could administer the shot alongside other antigens...

“We are seeing a tremendous demand for the vaccine, not only in Apac, but in most of the 105 high and moderate transmission districts that have rolled out the antigen. In fact, in most of these areas, the fear is that they will deplete the doses before every eligible child has been vaccinated,” said Akuno. “For instance, three parishes in Kole district, also in northern Uganda, have already utilised their allocated vaccines.

The Ministry of Health distributed just under 2.3 million doses of the vaccine early this year, with the initial goal of reaching 1.1 million children under two years in 105 high and moderate transmission districts across the country. But it plans to expand the roll-out countrywide.

Optimism on the frontline

It’s not just mothers who are enthusiastic about the vaccine. Moris Ogwang, registered nurse and deputy in-charge of the paediatric ward at Apac General Hospital, is looking forward to seeing a change in the grim statistics he records daily.

“We admit about 20 kids a day. But of these, 18 are usually because of malaria,” said Ogwang in an interview with VaccinesWork. “Sometimes we get babies who are barely weeks old, and they have severe malaria and pneumonia and need to be transfused.”

“The vaccine will help to stop such complicated cases,” he said. “It may not prevent children from contracting malaria, but it will help to build their immunity and stop severe forms of the disease, which are our biggest challenge, really.”

Aceng made the same argument during the 2 April launch. She said that the vaccine was expected to prevent at least 800 cases of severe malaria in children every day. The vaccine is also anticipated to ease the financial burden imposed by the disease, saving families at least 15,000 Ugandan shillings (US$ 4.18) per case.

“We might not realise its impact immediately, but in a year or two, people will see its benefit,” she said.

Odongo is likewise optimistic. “I am positive that with the introduction of the malaria vaccine, alongside other preventive measures, like the use of treated mosquito nets, integrated community case management of malaria, and larviciding, we shall reduce cases of children who die of malaria,” he said.

Every year, around 600,000 people die from malaria, a mosquito-borne disease—most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and children are the most vulnerable. This makes malaria one of the deadliest infectious diseases globally. A new study from the University of Copenhagen, published in Global Change Biology, shows that future climate change could create more favorable conditions for malaria mosquitoes, exposing millions of people across large parts of Africa to more dangerous mosquito bites.