World Malaria Day: A public health disaster about to happen?

Half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria. There were 216 million cases of malaria in 2010, 81% of these were in the WHO African. (WHO 2011)

Since the mid-2000s, the treatment of choice against malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease, is based on the artemisinin derivative, artesunate. This in addition to environmental control measures like:,insecticide treated bed nets, insect repellents, and indoor residual sprays of insecticides. Environmental management including the removal or treatment of standing water (where mosquitoes breed) have been shown to reduce and even eliminate malaria.

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Experts Discuss Strengthening TB Laboratory Capacity and Accreditation, April 2-6, on GHDonline.org

Only 63% of new smear-positive TB cases and only 53% of all new TB cases are detected globally. Scaling up laboratory services to meet the diagnostic challenges of drug-resistant and HIV-associated TB requires a paradigm shift in developing laboratory policy development, setting laboratory norms and standards, guiding and coordinating technical assistance, and accelerating knowledge transfer.

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