Nearly a million people die from malaria each year because they cannot afford the most effective treatment and instead buy old drugs, researchers said.

Brave new world of health ideas

22/10/2009

Chocolate as a malaria treatment? Cell phones to detect pneumonia? Who’d fund such outlandish research proposals? The likes of Bill Gates, no less, to the tune of $100 million.

Hope for malaria babies

17/9/2009

One third of malaria cases in African infants could be avoided with a simple, safe, affordable tool.

New mozzie repellent promising

17/8/2009

After searching for more than 50 years, scientists finally have discovered a number of new mosquito repellents that beat DEET, the gold standard for warding off mosquitoes.

Insect repellent bad for humans

5/8/2009

One of the world's most common insect repellents acts on the central nervous system in the same way as some insecticides and nerve gases, according to a new study.

Malaria came from chimps

4/8/2009

Malaria, which affects some 500 million people a year worldwide, was first transmitted to humans by chimpanzees, according to a US study.

Malaria vaccine enters human trials

29/7/2009

Scientists have created a weakened strain of the malaria parasite to be used as a live vaccine against the disease, and it will be trialled in humans from early next year.

Bilharzia breakthrough hailed

16/7/2009

An international team of scientists announced they had unravelled the genome of the parasitic worm that causes bilharzia, a disease that each year claims thousands of lives.

Mozzies bred at repellent factory

1/7/2009

A Sri Lankan court threatened a mosquito repellent factory manager with jail for failing to destroy mosquito breeding areas on company premises to stop the spread of dengue fever.

Malaria resists some drugs

1/6/2009

There's evidence that malaria in Cambodia may be resistant to front-line artemesinin drugs - and full-blown resistance would pose a serious worldwide health crisis, scientists say.