Malaria.com is delighted to present this latest e-issue in partnership with WWARN (the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network). WWARN focuses on gathering data and collating resources related to malaria medication, and specifically factors affecting its efficacy.One on-going effort relates to monitoring of drug quality – as one of the critical tools used for malaria control (along with … [Read more...]
Five Things You Might Not Know About Medicine Quality
The proliferation of poor quality medicines has been described as a global pandemic that threatens the lives of millions.1 It stands to reason that poor quality medicines are not going to improve anyone’s health, but how much do we really know about the quality of medicines used across the world? Here we examine five issues relating to medicine quality in an effort to show why we should all be … [Read more...]
How Can We Detect Poor Quality Medicines?
Finding out what medicines contain and investigating their packaging are vital steps in the fight against poor quality medicines, both substandard and falsified. Falsified medicines usually masquerade as real medicines by copying the appearance and packaging of the real product, but may not contain any of the same active ingredients, or in the correct amounts. Substandard medicines result from … [Read more...]
Challenges in Tackling the Issue of Poor Quality Medicines
There are many unresolved issues that impede the elimination of poor quality medicines.Progress impeded by confusion over definitions Although there has been an awakening of interest in the problem of poor quality medicines in the last few decades, issues around terminology and definitions have ended up drowning the discussions in a way that has not been productive.The term ‘counterfeit’ … [Read more...]
Hot Spots: Recent Evidence on the Quality of Currently Recommended Antimalarials
Falsified or substandard medicines of the majority of commonly used anti-infectives have been detected.1,2 The issue of antimalarial quality has had much attention recently because of global concern about the public health burden of malaria and the potential for drug resistance to undo the huge gains made in reducing the burden of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. However, despite the interest in the … [Read more...]
Malaria in Pregnancy Is a Matter of Life and Death – for Mother and Child
This quarter’s e-issue focuses on malaria in pregnancy, a critically important topic within the field of malaria prevention and control. The changes that occur in a woman’s body when she becomes pregnant, and particularly to her immune system, leave her especially vulnerable to contracting malaria, and experiencing severe illness.Dr. Stephanie Valderramos describes these physiological changes … [Read more...]
Plasmodium and Pregnancy
Malaria Susceptibility in the Pregnant PatientThe pregnant woman is a unique patient due to physiologic adaptations that allow a woman to grow and maintain a fetus. In many ways, the fetus is a transplant—it is able to develop and grow within its genetically distinct mother without immune rejection. This is possible through the immunosuppressed state of pregnancy. During pregnancy, the … [Read more...]
Malaria in Pregnancy – How Many Lives at Risk?
The global malaria burden is huge. Approximately 3.3 billion people—50% of the world’s population—live in areas of malaria transmission. Of these, approximately 125 million are pregnant. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, there were approximately 198 million cases of malaria in 2013, which led to 584,000 deaths. Malaria in pregnancy is thought to contribute to up to … [Read more...]
The Malaria in Pregnancy Library: A Rich Resource for Information and Research
Most people know that children are at particular risk from malaria, a disease caused by a parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes. Malaria is a major cause of death among children in sub-Saharan Africa. However, it is less known that malaria in pregnancy can have equally devastating consequences both to the mother and developing fetus. During pregnancy a change in a woman’s immune status occurs … [Read more...]
Notes from the Field: Q&A with Jackline
Jackline is a Ugandan medical doctor and maternal health specialist. Malaria.com caught up with Jackline to ask her a few questions about her work, and specifically her observations on the impacts of malaria on pregnant women.What is a typical day like for you when working in the field?A typical day involves waking up at 6am, preparing for the day and by 8am I am in the ward. First I … [Read more...]