Global Health Technologies Coalition’s “Breakthroughs”: As the global fight against malaria stalls, malaria vaccine development could be primed for breakout
Ashley Birkett, director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative at PATH, discusses the stalled progress against malaria and the potential development of a malaria vaccine, writing, “[W]hile the current fight may have plateaued, the lesson of the last decades is that a unified, well-funded assault on malaria — one committed to developing a variety of tools and making them widely available — can produce substantial progress. If we continue to invest in malaria vaccine development, and fund other promising work now underway to create a new generation of drugs, insecticides, diagnostics, and other tools, while strengthening the programs and systems that deliver them, we can turn the tide. And from there, we can confidently set our sights on eliminating and eradicating the disease forever” (11/27).