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Reducing the burden of childhood malaria in Africa: the role of improved

Nature volume 444, pages 39–48 (2006)Cite this article

Malaria kills > 1 million children aged < 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa annually. Current control efforts are hampered by increasing drug resistance, unreliable diagnostics, widespread overtreatment and rising drug costs. In this environment, new and widely available malaria diagnostics have the potential to save lives and drastically reduce overtreatment.

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Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3: Elasticities associated with each model input parameter.
Figure 4: Elasticities associated with each model input parameter.
Figure 5: Trade-off between sensitivity and specificity for a new diagnostic requiring minimal infrastructure.
Figure 6: Trade-off between improvements in diagnostic specificity and broader access to a diagnostic.

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Acknowledgements

The views of Dr. Maghill are his personal viewpoints and do not represent official policy of the US Department of Defense or the US Army.

The authors thank T. Brewer and R. Rabinovich (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Washington, USA), P. Duffy (Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Washington, USA), N. White (Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand) and A. Shepherd (Omega Diagnostics Group PLC, Alva, Scotland, UK) for comments on earlier presentations of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RAND Corporation, PO Box 2138, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, 90401-2138, California, USA

    Maria E. Rafael, Yee-Wei Lim & Federico Girosi

  2. Michigan State University, B309-B West Fee Hall, College of Osteopathic Medicine, East Lansing, 48824, Michigan, USA

    Terrie Taylor

  3. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Avenue, Silver Spring, 20910, Maryland, USA

    Alan Magill

  4. MENTOR Initiative, Old Grammar School House, Newmarket Street, Skipton, BD23 2JP, UK

    Richard Allan

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Correspondence to Maria E. Rafael.

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Rafael, M., Taylor, T., Magill, A. et al. Reducing the burden of childhood malaria in Africa: the role of improved. Nature 444 (Suppl 1), 39–48 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05445

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