Africa: New Push On Malaria

Malaria researchers believe that better coordination and new technologies, such as the use of vaccines and sophisticated disease mapping, can inject new life into the ambitious goal of eradicating the deadly illness.

For the past three decades, the key mandate of the malaria community has been promote the use of bed nets to control and reduce the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, and focus on the most vulnerable - African children.

A child in Africa dies every minute from malaria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Some 3.3 billion people in nearly 100 countries worldwide are at risk of the disease, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

But because of recent interventions, including the use of bed nets, administrating rapid diagnostic tests, and boosting treatment with artemisinin combination therapies, or ACTs - which have become the new standard in medication - malaria rates have fallen 33 percent in Africa and over 25 percent globally in the past decade, WHO says.