There is no excuse for the world to still have malaria

Mosquitoes infect millions of people with malaria - a disease that kills a child every two minutes. Most of these deaths occur in the poorest countries with the weakest health systems. Over the past 20 years, much has been invested in malaria prevention and treatment, resulting in the prevention of over 7.6 million malaria deaths. The progress the world has made in the fight against malaria is one of the greatest success stories in global health. Currently, however, these successes are threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic, as the virus places an additional burden on already fragile health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. The good news is that many countries are finding ways to maintain important malaria programmes despite the pandemic, and there were fewer disruptions of prevention and treatment activities last year than feared.

In this episode, Carine Weiss talks to Professor Christian Lengeler about his passion for malaria research and how the current pandemic is affecting malaria prevention and treatment.