Malaria

Flood water in the Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh is receding, yet millions are still left homeless. Concerns are growing about the needs for shelter, food, and protection against diseases such as malaria.

Since August 5, MSF teams have been distributing thousands of mosquito nets to the population of Matam, a district in the capital Conakry, where the organization is running a nutritional and primary health care program.

Geneva/New York – April 8, 2009 – A global malaria drug subsidy to be launched this month is failing to look at medical needs and is jeopardizing the future of the most effective malaria treatments that exist today, says international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

In a new report launched today, MSF said many more lives can be saved if newer effective strategies to tackle malaria are more widely implemented. The report, titled "Full Prescription; better malaria treatment for more people, MSF’s experience,"describes the organization’s work in Sierra Leone, Chad and Mali, and shows that unnecessary deaths can be avoided with simple, affordable treatment and diagnostic tools available today.

Johannesburg/Brussels, September 30, 2008 —In a new report launched today, the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said many more lives can be saved if newer effective strategies to tackle malaria are more widely implemented. The report, titled "Full Prescription; better malaria treatment for more people, MSF’s experience,"describes the organization’s work in Sierra Leone, Chad and Mali, and shows that unnecessary deaths can be avoided with simple, affordable treatment and diagnostic tools available today.

The south of Mali, a marshy region crossed from west to east by the river Niger, is a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry malaria. The disease is omnipresent here, and children, the group most vulnerable to the parasite, are its main victims. Every child under five suffers from malaria at least once a year, and some catch it a second or even a third time over the course of a year. The medical needs associated with malaria are huge, but the health system does not respond proportionately.

Rio de Janeiro, April 17, 2008 – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the launch in Brazil of a new drug against P. Falciparum, the most dangerous type of malaria. Developed by DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) in partnership with Farmanguinhos/Fiocruz, ASMQ is the first drug against malaria that combines artesunate (AS) and mefloquine (MQ) in one fixed dose. ASMQ is an important additional tool for better treatment for a disease that continues to kill over one million people each year globally, and kills a child every 30 seconds.

Pediatrician Leo Ho worked in the intensive care unit of an MSF-run hospital in Bo, Sierra Leone, an area plagued by malaria. Here, he reflects on his assignment through images captured by photojournalist Francesco Zizola.

Paris/New York, March 1, 2007 — The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the introduction of a new user-friendly and cheaper 2-in-1 tablet of artesunate-amodiaquine against malaria. The treatment, also called ASAQ, is the result of research by the non-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in cooperation with sanofi-aventis and it demonstrates how research and development can take place without patenting for availability in the public domain.

Geneva, April 21, 2006 – Alarmingly few African patients with malaria are getting existing effective treatment that could cure them in a few days, says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Four years after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global recommendation for countries to switch from old malaria treatments to artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACTs, and two years after the Global Fund decided to fund ACTs, MSF teams are witnessing government-run health facilities still giving patients old malaria medicines instead of a treatment that works.

March 31, 2005, Geneva/New York — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is gravely disappointed that donor governments, WHO, UNICEF, and the Global Fund, who are meeting this week at the Roll Back Malaria Partnership board meeting, are refusing to admit that the global malaria strategy has hit a brick wall.

On November 8th the World Health Organization communicated mis-information regarding reasons for current shortages of the malaria drug artemether-lumefantrine (sole supplier Novartis, under the trade name Coartem).

Geneva, April 22, 2004 - Widespread use of a new fast-acting and potent treatment for malaria is finally on the horizon in Africa, where malaria is the number one killer of children. But the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warns that artemisinin-based combination therapy or ACT will only be accessible to all in need if immediate action is taken to finance scale-up of production of the drugs.

On the occasion of the second Board of Directors meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), scheduled to take place in New York City, April 23-24, 2002.