Malaria deaths in Gambia drop steeply-study

Providing pregnant women and children with insecticide-treated bed nets has sharply cut malaria deaths in the West African nation of Gambia, according to a study published on Friday.

The findings suggest health officials in other parts of Africa could eliminate the disease as a public health problem in a region where malaria kills a child every 30 seconds, David Conway and colleagues at the Medical Research Council UK reported in the journal Lancet.

"We have seen that it has gone down and stayed down," Conway said. "There is no evidence of an upsurge but we are aware that with an infectious disease you can never know for sure."

The World Health Organization estimates malaria killed 881,000 people and infected 247 million people worldwide in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available. Some malaria experts say those numbers underestimate the problem.

The disease -- caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes -- has become resistant to some drugs and work on a vaccine has been slow. One effective treatment is Novartis AG's Coartem.

A separate study published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens said Dutch researchers have worked out the characteristics of a large number of parasite proteins that may prove useful in developing a vaccine.
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EU Pesticide Regulations & Malaria Control

The European Union is currently considering a new regulatory regime for pesticides used in agriculture. The rationale for the new regulations, which will come into force in Fall/Autumn 2008, is to reduce pesticide residues on produce and to limit exposure to chemicals that may cause cancer or act as endocrine disruptors.

March of Washingtons

Visit the March of Washingtons website at www.marchofwashingtons.org - find out how you can help in the fight against malaria, see pictures from other marches, learn more about treatment for malaria and the prevalence of substandard antimalarial drugs, check out the supporters and Founding Partners, tell us about your March of Washingtons and upload your picture.