* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
This blog post was provided by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Smarter tactics and investment in evidence-based interventions are urgently needed to sustain the gains in the fight against malaria, according to experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
On World Malaria Day (25 April), leading researchers say they are confident that the war is being won, but call for more intelligent approaches to continue to save lives without wasting money.
One intervention developed by experts at the school and recently recommended by the World Health Organization is seasonal malaria chemoprevention, a preventative approach which gives all children a monthly treatment dose of anti-malarial drugs during the high malaria transmission season.
"Seasonal malaria chemoprevention is very similar to what tourists do as a preventative measure," said Brian Greenwood, professor of clinical tropical medicine.
"Clinical trials in Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana and the Gambia, have shown this approach will reduce malaria by 80 percent."
Chi Eziefula, clinical research fellow at the school, is currently undertaking a study on malaria transmission in Uganda which also demonstrates smarter thinking.
The anti-malarial drug primaquine is being tested as a method of preventing the malaria-causing plasmodium parasite from being transmitted from infected humans back to the mosquitoes biting them.
"Malaria is transmitted from mosquito to man and back again from man to mosquito, and it's that second part of the cycle we are interested in blocking," Eziefula said.
"Most malaria drugs are targeted at the form of parasite that causes people to become ill and possibly die, but early on in the infection another form of the parasite called the gametocyte develops.
This is harmless to humans but infectious to mosquitoes. This is what we are working to block," she added.
While pioneering work is under way, experts are also anxious that gains made in the fight against malaria to date are not lost due to a lack of funding, both in the lab and on the ground with health practitioners.
"In the last five years, we have made great gains in malaria control through international investments in bednets," said Jo Lines, reader in vector biology and malaria control.
"Hundreds of millions of nets have been distributed and hundreds of thousands of children's lives have been saved. But these nets are now worn out, and unless we replace them, we will lose what we gained. In the midst of a financial crisis, international commitments for funding beyond 2013/14 don't look very good," he said.
"We are threatened with an awful lot of lives being lost unless those investments are sustained."
