30 September 2023 – Below we feature a compilation of headlines, scientific articles, and technical reports on innovations, R&D and elimination progress towards polio, malaria, onchocerciasis, and lymphatic filariasis. We will be publishing these updates bi-weekly and hope they are useful.

Vector Control

  • A field bioassay for assessing ivermectin bio-efficacy in wild malaria vectors – Link
  • Cost and quality of operational larviciding using drones and smartphone technology – Link
  • Empowering health entomologists towards a malaria-free future in Indonesia – Link
  • Urban malaria vector bionomics and human sleeping behavior in three cities in Senegal – Link

Diagnostic testing and treatment

  • Nanopore-sequencing-based method for rapid poliovirus detection during outbreaks – Link
  • Safety and tolerability of moxidectin and ivermectin combination treatments for lymphatic filariasis in Côte d’Ivoire: A randomized controlled superiority study – Link 

Drug resistance

  • Mainstay malaria drug may be beginning to fail in the horn of Africa – Link | Link to Paper
  • New strategies may reduce treatment failure in malaria by up to 81% – Link | Link to Paper
  • Profiling artemisinin’s antimalarial mechanism: Research team reveals crucial target proteins – Link

Immunisation

  • Pakistan’s polio and routine immunisation programmes are linking hands. It’s working wonders – Link
  • Persistence of immunity following a single dose of inactivated poliovirus vaccine: a phase 4, open label, non-randomised clinical trial – Link 
  • Phase 2 polio campaign- a timely intervention – Link

Surveillance

  • Notes from the field: circulating vaccine-derived Poliovirus Type 2 emergences linked to novel Oral Poliovirus Vaccine Type 2 use — Six African countries, 2021–2023 – Link

Elimination progress

  • Zimbabwe ramps up efforts to eliminate malaria – Link
  • Progress toward Poliomyelitis eradication — Afghanistan, January 2022–June 2023 – Link
  • Tanzania records achievements in addressing NTDs – Link
  • Overcoming challenges on the path to malaria elimination: lessons from Java and Bali – Link
  • Zoonotic malaria requires new policy approaches to malaria elimination – Link
  • Global polio eradication effort struggles with the end game – Link | Link to Paper 

Outbreak

  • Four African countries report polio cases – Link

Climate and Health

  • Leaders spotlight the critical intersection between health and climate ahead of COP-28 first-ever Health Day – Link
  • Climate change impeding fight against AIDS, TB and malaria – Link

Other

  • Is the threat of malaria increasing? – Link
  • Africa: Innovative, sustainable funding needed to deal with Neglected Tropical Diseases – Link
  • Malaria vaccine coverage estimation using age-eligible populations and service user denominators in Kenya – Link
  • Epidemiology of malaria in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh within 2017–2020 – Link
  • Prevalence and predictors of asymptomatic malaria infection in Boricha District, Sidama Region, Ethiopia: implications for elimination strategies – Link
  • Microsporidia MB in the primary malaria vector Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto is avirulent and undergoes maternal and horizontal transmission – Link
  • Get Healthy: Though numbers are small. local transmission of malaria is increasing in U.S. – Link
  • African leaders warn of deadly malaria emergency and call for urgent action to address unprecedented funding shortfall – Link
  • Haematological parameters and their correlation with the degree of malaria parasitaemia among outpatients attending a polyclinic – Link
  • Ending communicable diseases requires a combined elimination framework – Link
  • Billions left behind on the path to universal health coverage – Link
  • PRESS RELEASE: Start of the Samoa Lymphatic Filariasis Mass Drug Administration (MDA) – Link
  • Boyce Receives $4.4 Million to Lead a Malaria Intervention Project in Uganda Following Extreme Weather Events – Link | Link to Paper

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