A new report highlighting the impact of malaria interventions on maternal, newborn and child health has been launched, which is the latest in the [b]Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership’s[/b][i]Progress & Impact Series[/i] to help assess progress towards targets set out in the [b]Global Malaria Action Plan and the UN’s Millennium Development Goals[/b]. [s]News-Medical[/s] reports that co-authored by the [b]Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine[/b], the report shares evidence that intermittent preventive malaria treatment during pregnancy and the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets can reduce the risk of death to malaria within the first 28 days of life by 18%. Such protective tools can decrease low birth weight deliveries by 21%.
A study shows, meanwhile, that malaria-infected mice give off odours that attract mosquitoes. And the insects that feed on the sufferer infected by the plasmodium parasites that cause malaria are then more likely to spread the disease. According to [s]Scientific American[/s], by chemically analysing animals’ scents, the researchers found that the parasites boost the levels of a variety of odorous compounds that attract mosquitoes – plasmodium is manipulating both victim and carrier to get itself spread far and wide.
[link url=http://www.news-medical.net/news/20140711/New-report-highlights-impact-of-malaria-interventions-on-maternal-newborn-health.aspx]Full News-Medical report[/link]
[link url=http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/ProgressImpactSeries/docs/report17-en.pdf]Roll Back Malaria report[/link]
[link url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/malarial-mice-smell-better-to-mosquitoes]Full Scientific American report[/link]
[link url=http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/06/25/1405617111]Proceedings of US National Academy of Sciences abstract[/link]