The mosquito-borne parasites that cause malaria were wiped out in Israel several years before the state’s founding in 1948. So why did leading malaria experts choose Jerusalem as the place to meet last week to formulate a new strategy for African nations?
Because the tactics that proved successful here in the 1920 and 1930s, coupled with new technologies, could be exactly what sub-Saharan Africa needs to address its malaria epidemic, which causes the death of a child every 30 seconds. Some 250 million people worldwide are infected by the parasite.
Despite billions invested in malaria vaccine research and mosquito netting, the problem persists and may even be getting worse, says public-health and medicine historian Maureen Malowany from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health.
“Revisiting Malaria” conference participants are soon to release the Jerusalem Declaration on Malaria Elimination, proposing what Malowany calls “a phenomenal melding of 21st century technology and tools in an old toolbox.”
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