News worthy of a post

After a couple of months of neglect, I thought I would mark the exciting news that the first ever malaria vaccine has been given the green light by European regulators with a blog post.

I was particularly happy to see the following article on the BBC News from GAVI and the Global Fund, which does a very good job of explaining the complexities that lie behind decision-making in public health, and why we need trials, simulations and statistical analysis to help make those decisions the best-informed we can.  

Ebola and malaria

There's a very good article on the BBC today about the effect the current Ebola outbreak is having on the fight against malaria in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.  It's a very unfortunate combination of two problems - the fact that limited resources (particularly medical staff) are now being severely stretched, and that the similarity of symptoms in the early stages of both diseases is leading to reduced treatment seeking.

“These countries have previously been really hit by malaria. But five years ago, it was even worse - the deaths were double.

We all agree that no child should die from malaria, because we have the tools to prevent and treat it.

But now, understandably, all the health workers’ attention is on Ebola.

We used to see hospital beds with three children in them at a time, because there was not enough space.

Now those paediatric wards are becoming ghost areas, because of the lack of manpower there. So we don’t know who has malaria, and who is dying from it. Even if the situation is at the same level as last year, that was still very bad in those countries. We’re really concerned that Ebola will cause a setback to the efforts on malaria.

And there’s a lack of trust and confidence in health workers. There’s still a feeling it’s them who are bringing the virus to people.”

— Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, Roll Back Malaria, speaking to the BBC

The effect of Ebola on malaria transmission, and of concomitant malaria on Ebola survival, are certainly areas with many open questions.

The rise of the British urban mosquito

There's a paper in PLOS One detailing an experiment with water butts where it was seen that mosquito breeding grounds in urban environments show higher populations, but lower species diversity.  Interestingly, A. plumbeus (German wikipedia, as there is no English entry yet) seems increasingly to breed in this environment, which has a potential impact on public health as a carrier of West Nile virus.

“Mosquitoes in urban containers were less species-rich but present in significantly higher densities (100.4±21.3) per container than those in rural containers (77.7±15.1). Urban containers were dominated by Culex pipiens (a potential vector of West Nile Virus [WNV]) and appear to be increasingly exploited by Anopheles plumbeus (a human-biting potential WNV and malaria vector).”

— British Container Breeding Mosquitoes: The Impact of Urbanisation and Climate Change on Community Composition and Phenology

The BBC have a news article on the story here.

Malaria Vaccine Initiative in the Guardian

The Guardian newspaper (UK) has run a nice feature which give an introductory overview about the work of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, for whom I am currently doing some mathematical modelling work.

Malaria vaccines: from impossible to probable

“This week we celebrate the progress being made on both fronts: to expand the reach of existing tools against malaria and to develop and make available effective vaccines. It’s also a time to look forward to what could be—a future where parents no longer lose their children to this preventable disease”

— Ashley Birkett, PATH