Decades of scientific progress are converging into a new era of malaria prevention — from the introduction of the first malaria vaccines to expanding access to chemoprevention and real-time surveillance. But the lesson from realities on the ground is clear: innovation is only as powerful as our ability to harness it meaningfully.
At this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), held in Toronto, Canada, Malaria Consortium is contributing to a crucial conversation: breakthrough innovations in malaria prevention, control and elimination are changing the landscape of this formidable disease, but they will only fulfil their promise if they’re thoughtfully integrated into the communities and health systems they’re designed to reach.
A new era in malaria prevention
The need for this awareness has never been clearer than in the rollout of new malaria vaccines, which are gradually being introduced across Africa.
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At this year’s meeting, Malaria Consortium is proud to be hosting a symposium with GSK, co-chaired by James Tibenderana, our Chief Executive, focused on the malaria vaccines. Vaccine, malaria and public health experts will share critical insights on vaccine performance, safety data and real-world implementation lessons from the African countries that have introduced these vaccines into childhood immunisation programmes. The panel will be an opportunity to discuss what has and hasn’t worked in the rollout, where challenges have arisen and how they can be addressed going forward to ensure as many children as possible receive the lifesaving intervention.
As we look ahead, we must leverage strategic partnerships and adopt a solutions-focused mindset to address vaccine-related and other challenges including drug and insecticide resistance. Deepening community engagement and awareness is an integral component for better uptake of health services and essential to ensuring that innovations translate into lasting impact.
The power of community trust
Research repeatedly finds that community acceptance is a crucial deciding factor in the success of health programmes. Research led by Malaria Consortium reinforces this finding. In Osun state, Nigeria, perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC), officially recommended by the World Health Organization in 2022 as an intervention to protect young children from year-round malaria, not only reduced cases in young children but also encouraged parents to maintain other healthcare activities like immunisation.
After one year, researchers interviewed parents, community leaders and health workers to assess the programme’s real-world impact: all groups reported that PMC significantly reduced malaria cases in children, eased the burden on families through fewer clinic visits and improved overall healthcare engagement including vaccination uptake.
The benefits of this approach with PMC will be explored in a symposium also co-chaired by our Chief Executive, James Tibenderana with Dr Corine Ngufor who is Associate Professor at the Centre de Recherche Entomologique de Cotonou (CREC) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The discussion will offer guidance on using insights on the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing PMC to inform its adoption into national policy and its expansion to other African countries.
In another study, among more than 16,000 children across five countries, 80 percent completed five rounds of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC), which involves giving children antimalarial drugs at regular intervals to keep them protected throughout high malaria risk periods. Success rates were highest when caregivers understood the programme’s benefits and community health workers made home visits to encourage and ensure adherence to SMC regimens. The research also identified the barriers that limited uptake: while families appreciated health benefits and flexible clinic hours made it easier for families to take their children for medicines, staff shortages, transportation costs and limited awareness created obstacles requiring targeted solutions.
Indeed, our research underscores the importance of community engagement across all health challenges, not just malaria. From neglected tropical diseases to childhood illnesses and emerging threats like dengue, building trust and working closely with communities helps ensure that interventions are understood, accepted and sustained, ultimately making them more effective and equitable.
In Cambodia, a 99 percent reduction in malaria cases between 2004 and 2024 — with zero malaria deaths since 2018 — didn’t happen by chance. It resulted from strengthening the capacity of village malaria workers and mobile malaria workers to deliver prevention, testing, treatment and digital reporting, even in the most remote areas. These community-based workers now perform most of the malaria tests and diagnose more than half of all cases. And, drawing on their experience of working with remote communities and the trust they have already established, this same network of volunteers performs outreach and testing for other health challenges, including cervical cancer.
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When innovation meets reality
The conversations happening at ASTMH’s annual meeting, and beyond, highlight that malaria prevention has entered a sophisticated new era.
We have powerful tools, such as vaccines and effective chemoprevention, but these tools alone don’t save lives. What matters is how communities engage with and accept these tools, how we embed them in health systems and how we weave them into the daily realities of families seeking protection from malaria and related health inequities. These efforts will also require strategic and creative partnerships to ensure that innovations are used to their greatest effect. The path to malaria elimination runs through both the laboratory and the village, through both the breakthrough research and the careful work of testing its application in real-world settings.
