Our founder, Dr Benji Pretorius, states that essential ongoing collaboration is essential for the Asia Pacific region to eradicate malaria by 2030.

His message came at the same time as Malaria Week was taking place in Hanoi, Vietnam, providing a platform for information exchange and dialogue between regional and global stakeholders supporting the region’s ambition to become malaria-free within the next 10 years.

As well as continuing to collaborate, Dr Pretorius, who survived a case of severe malaria himself, also believes that a focus on innovation and accessible treatments will also be crucial, particularly during the current Covid-19 pandemic.

He said, “2020 has presented numerous challenges in the fight against malaria. As a global community, we have all made significant progress in defeating this disease, yet there are still millions of people at risk in the Asia-Pacific region. Without investment and ongoing collaboration from leaders, deaths from malaria will quickly surge. At Erada, we have continued to work on bringing our saliva-based RDT to market despite the Covid-19 pandemic, but across the world, malaria prevention programmes have been significantly affected. It is important that we remain on track.”

According to a report in The Lancet in April 2020, incidents of malaria across the Asia-Pacific region declined by 42% in the years 2010 to 2018. However, Dr Pretorius fears that the physical distancing measures introduced due to Covid-19 could see more outbreaks of malaria in the future.

Further information about Malaria Week is available here.

 

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