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Published online 3 November 2009 | Nature 462, 19 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462017a
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Initiative targets malaria eradication
Focus shifts to blocking parasite transmission.
The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), the main public–private partnership for developing vaccines against the disease, this week announced a major overhaul of the sorts of vaccine candidates it will support in the future, as well as the ways in which it will select them.
The move follows a 2007 call by Bill and Melinda Gates — major funders of malaria research — for researchers to not just control the disease, but aim to eradicate the parasite.
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For years now, emphasis on the battle against malaria has been on the acquisition of continuously developed arsenals of drugs for fighting the causative agent on arrival in human body system, rather than ambushing the trip to humans through the vectors – the mosquitoes. Ordinarily, human blood seem a special delicacy to mosquitoes; this they go in search for without any deliberate intension of transmitting plasmodium, the causative agents of malaria!
When will there be attention for ideas on investing in identifying the supportive favorable habitats of mosquitoes especially in Africa. This is with a view to developing different strategies for eliminating such habitats and attacking the vectors at their weakest point of development before they mature to perform their harmful activities on man. For interest in this approach we will be pleased to share our proposal. Prof. M. S. Ayodele (lix-lena@gmail.com)