After thousands of hours of investigation, evaluation and review - covering internal documents, interviews and on-site visits - the independent charity evaluator GiveWell has just announced its new top-rated charity: Against Malaria!

Read their announcement and the detailed review of our charity for more details.

Elise Johnson, a student at North Central High School, and now at Stanford University, talks on national radio in the US about her experience distributing nets in Senegal: http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment/3062/Malaria-Nets-for-Africa

The Global Fund (for Aids, TB and Malaria) has cancelled all Round 11 grants, ie for programmes from mid 2012, as they do not have the money to fund them. This is very worrying for the fight against malaria. Good progress in malaria control has been made in the last five years. Higher levels of net coverage have helped achieve a fall in malaria cases and deaths. We must keep up that momentum as it offers the best chance, and the real possibility, of malaria being brought under control with the dramatic reduction in the number of people who fall sick or die from malaria that can bring.

More info: The Guardian

Press Release (pdf 17.58 kb)

From the Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report 

Reasons For Caution About Experimental Malaria Vaccine
"Writing in KPLU's "Humanosphere" blog, Tom Paulson responds to last week's announcement of results from an ongoing clinical trial of an experimental malaria vaccine, saying, "Despite the hype and fanfare, many experts at the Seattle meeting said this experimental vaccine (known as RTS,S) actually so far represents only incremental progress -- a scientific achievement which may still turn out to have little practical utility in the real world." Paulson says "the findings largely repeat earlier 'interim' results"; the cost of the vaccine, which has not yet been confirmed; and difficulty developing a malaria vaccine that offers an acceptable level of protection are reasons why the vaccine may not be successful (10/25)." The Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report is published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. 2011 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Other commentators also point out the need to continue using proven methods to combat malaria

All those working to defeat malaria hope the vaccine does prove to be a significant weapon in the fight against malaria.

Update: New England Journal of Medicine Editorial 

Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Executive Director of the 'Roll Back Malaria' Partnership, has just given an interview stating that malaria has moved from being the largest cause of infant mortality to the third largest in Africa, although this differs in many countries and regions.

Read more here.